diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/conversion/plugins/txt_input.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/conversion/plugins/txt_input.py
index 50f1409ea6..046b362ae7 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/conversion/plugins/txt_input.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/conversion/plugins/txt_input.py
@@ -63,7 +63,6 @@ class TXTInput(InputFormatPlugin):
                 normalize_line_endings, convert_textile, remove_indents,
                 block_to_single_line, separate_hard_scene_breaks)
 
-
         self.log = log
         txt = ''
         log.debug('Reading text from file...')
@@ -92,6 +91,12 @@ class TXTInput(InputFormatPlugin):
             log.debug('Using user specified input encoding of %s' % ienc)
         else:
             det_encoding = detect(txt)
+            if det_encoding and det_encoding.lower().replace('_', '-').strip() in (
+                    'gb2312', 'chinese', 'csiso58gb231280', 'euc-cn', 'euccn',
+                    'eucgb2312-cn', 'gb2312-1980', 'gb2312-80', 'iso-ir-58'):
+                # Microsoft Word exports to HTML with encoding incorrectly set to
+                # gb2312 instead of gbk. gbk is a superset of gb2312, anyway.
+                det_encoding = 'gbk'
             ienc = det_encoding['encoding']
             log.debug('Detected input encoding as %s with a confidence of %s%%' % (ienc, det_encoding['confidence'] * 100))
         if not ienc: