diff --git a/chrome/content/zotero/xpcom/data/item.js b/chrome/content/zotero/xpcom/data/item.js
index 3eb5a2b23..8c62501e5 100644
--- a/chrome/content/zotero/xpcom/data/item.js
+++ b/chrome/content/zotero/xpcom/data/item.js
@@ -3679,7 +3679,7 @@ Zotero.Item.prototype.diff = function (item, includeMatches, ignoreFields) {
 	}
 	
 	if (thisData.note != undefined) {
-		// Whitespace normalization
+		// Whitespace and entity normalization
 		//
 		// Ideally this would all be fixed elsewhere so we didn't have to
 		// convert on every sync diff
@@ -3704,6 +3704,18 @@ Zotero.Item.prototype.diff = function (item, includeMatches, ignoreFields) {
 			thisNote = thisNote.replace(re, "<p> </p>");
 			otherNote = otherNote.replace(re, "<p> </p>");
 			
+			// Unencode XML entities
+			thisNote = thisNote.replace(/&amp;/g, "&");
+			otherNote = otherNote.replace(/&amp;/g, "&");
+			thisNote = thisNote.replace(/&apos;/g, "'");
+			otherNote = otherNote.replace(/&apos;/g, "'");
+			thisNote = thisNote.replace(/&quot;/g, '"');
+			otherNote = otherNote.replace(/&quot;/g, '"');
+			thisNote = thisNote.replace(/&lt;/g, "<");
+			otherNote = otherNote.replace(/&lt;/g, "<");
+			thisNote = thisNote.replace(/&gt;/g, ">");
+			otherNote = otherNote.replace(/&gt;/g, ">");
+			
 			changed = thisNote != otherNote;
 		}
 		catch (e) {