diff --git a/ajax.html b/ajax.html
index 9d77259..9121d39 100644
--- a/ajax.html
+++ b/ajax.html
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
 <b>JS-XLSX AJAX Demo</b><br />
 <pre id="out"></pre>
 <br />
+<script src="iemagic.js"></script>
 <script src="shim.js"></script>
 <script src="jszip.js"></script>
 <script src="xlsx.js"></script>
@@ -61,11 +62,10 @@ if(typeof Uint8Array !== 'undefined') {
 		process_wb(wb);
 	};
 } else {
+	oReq.setRequestHeader("Accept-Charset", "x-user-defined");	
 	oReq.onreadystatechange = function() { if(oReq.readyState == 4 && oReq.status == 200) {
-		var data = new VBArray(oReq.responseBody).toArray();
-		var arr = new Array();
-		for(var i = 0, len = data.length; i != len; ++i) arr[i] = String.fromCharCode(data[i]);
-		var wb = XLSX.read(arr.join(""), {type:"binary"});
+		var ff = convertResponseBodyToText(oReq.responseBody);
+		var wb = XLSX.read(ff, {type:"binary"});
 		process_wb(wb);
 	} };
 }
diff --git a/iemagic.js b/iemagic.js
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c9ac50b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/iemagic.js
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+// http://stackoverflow.com/a/5913807
+
+if(/msie/i.test(navigator.userAgent) && !/opera/i.test(navigator.userAgent)) {
+    var IEBinaryToArray_ByteStr_Script =
+    "<!-- IEBinaryToArray_ByteStr -->\r\n"+
+    "<script type='text/vbscript'>\r\n"+
+    "Function IEBinaryToArray_ByteStr(Binary)\r\n"+
+    "   IEBinaryToArray_ByteStr = CStr(Binary)\r\n"+
+    "End Function\r\n"+
+    "Function IEBinaryToArray_ByteStr_Last(Binary)\r\n"+
+    "   Dim lastIndex\r\n"+
+    "   lastIndex = LenB(Binary)\r\n"+
+    "   if lastIndex mod 2 Then\r\n"+
+    "       IEBinaryToArray_ByteStr_Last = Chr( AscB( MidB( Binary, lastIndex, 1 ) ) )\r\n"+
+    "   Else\r\n"+
+    "       IEBinaryToArray_ByteStr_Last = "+'""'+"\r\n"+
+    "   End If\r\n"+
+    "End Function\r\n"+
+    "</script>\r\n";
+
+    // inject VBScript
+    document.write(IEBinaryToArray_ByteStr_Script);
+}
+
+var convertResponseBodyToText = function (binary) {
+        var byteMapping = {};
+        for ( var i = 0; i < 256; i++ ) {
+            for ( var j = 0; j < 256; j++ ) {
+                byteMapping[ String.fromCharCode( i + j * 256 ) ] =
+                    String.fromCharCode(i) + String.fromCharCode(j);
+            }
+        }
+        var rawBytes = IEBinaryToArray_ByteStr(binary);
+        var lastChr = IEBinaryToArray_ByteStr_Last(binary);
+        return rawBytes.replace(/[\s\S]/g,
+                                function( match ) { return byteMapping[match]; }) + lastChr;
+};