 <p>You're using a character that falls outside the normal ASCII range of ordinals 0 -> 255.</p> <p>Put the following 2 lines at the top of your python files:</p> <pre><code>#!/usr/bin/env python # -*- coding: utf-8 -*- </code></pre> <p>and the error should go away.</p> <p>If not, email their support, or go to their <a href="http://forum.jetbrains.com/forum/PyCharm" rel="nofollow">forums</a>.</p>