diff --git a/openlp/plugins/custom/forms/editcustomform.py b/openlp/plugins/custom/forms/editcustomform.py
index 65a73337a..c5281574b 100644
--- a/openlp/plugins/custom/forms/editcustomform.py
+++ b/openlp/plugins/custom/forms/editcustomform.py
@@ -46,7 +46,6 @@ class EditCustomForm(QtGui.QDialog, Ui_CustomEditDialog):
         Constructor
         """
         QtGui.QDialog.__init__(self, parent)
-        #self.parent = parent
         self.setupUi(self)
         # Connecting signals and slots
         self.previewButton = QtGui.QPushButton()
@@ -124,8 +123,9 @@ class EditCustomForm(QtGui.QDialog, Ui_CustomEditDialog):
                 self.slideListView.addItem(slide[1])
             theme = self.customSlide.theme_name
             id = self.themeComboBox.findText(theme, QtCore.Qt.MatchExactly)
+            # No theme match
             if id == -1:
-                id = 0 # Not Found
+                id = 0
             self.themeComboBox.setCurrentIndex(id)
         else:
             self.themeComboBox.setCurrentIndex(0)
@@ -264,7 +264,7 @@ class EditCustomForm(QtGui.QDialog, Ui_CustomEditDialog):
             self.titleEdit.setFocus()
             return False, translate('CustomPlugin.EditCustomForm',
                 'You need to type in a title.')
-        # We must have one slide.
+        # We must have at least one slide.
         if self.slideListView.count() == 0:
             return False, translate('CustomPlugin.EditCustomForm',
                 'You need to add at least one slide')
diff --git a/openlp/plugins/custom/forms/editcustomslideform.py b/openlp/plugins/custom/forms/editcustomslideform.py
index 5f535c8bc..72c7dbb4a 100644
--- a/openlp/plugins/custom/forms/editcustomslideform.py
+++ b/openlp/plugins/custom/forms/editcustomslideform.py
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ class EditCustomSlideForm(QtGui.QDialog, Ui_CustomSlideEditDialog):
     def setText(self, text):
         """
         Set the text for slideTextEdit.
-        
+
         ``text``
             The text (unicode).
         """
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ class EditCustomSlideForm(QtGui.QDialog, Ui_CustomSlideEditDialog):
 
     def onSplitButtonPressed(self):
         """
-        Splits a slide in two slides.
+        Adds a slide split at the cursor.
         """
         if self.slideTextEdit.textCursor().columnNumber() != 0:
             self.slideTextEdit.insertPlainText(u'\n')
diff --git a/openlp/plugins/custom/lib/customxmlhandler.py b/openlp/plugins/custom/lib/customxmlhandler.py
index b554f9657..987163aa3 100644
--- a/openlp/plugins/custom/lib/customxmlhandler.py
+++ b/openlp/plugins/custom/lib/customxmlhandler.py
@@ -43,6 +43,7 @@ import logging
 
 from xml.dom.minidom import Document
 from xml.etree.ElementTree import ElementTree, XML, dump
+from lxml import etree, objectify
 from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError
 
 log = logging.getLogger(__name__)
@@ -129,10 +130,11 @@ class CustomXMLParser(object):
             The XML of the song to be parsed.
         """
         self.custom_xml = None
+        if xml[:5] == u'<?xml':
+            xml = xml[38:]
         try:
-            self.custom_xml = ElementTree(
-                element=XML(unicode(xml).encode('unicode-escape')))
-        except ExpatError:
+            self.custom_xml = objectify.fromstring(xml)
+        except etree.XMLSyntaxError:
             log.exception(u'Invalid xml %s', xml)
 
     def get_verses(self):
@@ -146,8 +148,7 @@ class CustomXMLParser(object):
             if element.tag == u'verse':
                 if element.text is None:
                     element.text = u''
-                verse_list.append([element.attrib,
-                    unicode(element.text).decode('unicode-escape')])
+                verse_list.append([element.attrib, unicode(element.text)])
         return verse_list
 
     def dump_xml(self):