diff -r 4b97092aa4bd Lib/pydoc.py
--- a/Lib/pydoc.py	Sun Apr 27 18:02:35 2014 +0100
+++ b/Lib/pydoc.py	Fri May 02 21:34:02 2014 +0200
@@ -1404,6 +1404,9 @@ class _PlainTextDoc(TextDoc):
 def pager(text):
     """The first time this is called, determine what kind of pager to use."""
     global pager
+    # Escape non-encodable characters to avoid encoding errors later
+    encoding = sys.getfilesystemencoding()
+    text = text.encode(encoding, 'backslashreplace').decode(encoding)
     pager = getpager()
     pager(text)