diff --git a/ietf/utils/soup2text.py b/ietf/utils/soup2text.py
index 9c6f9f33b..fe04349c9 100755
--- a/ietf/utils/soup2text.py
+++ b/ietf/utils/soup2text.py
@@ -7,10 +7,11 @@ try:
 except:
     from BeautifulSoup import Tag, BeautifulSoup, NavigableString
 
-block_tags = ["[document]", "html", "body", "div", "blockquote", "table", "tr", "p", "pre", "h1", "h2", "h3", "h4", "h5", "h6", "li"]
-space_tags = ["th", "td", "br"]
+block_tags = ["[document]", "html", "body", "div", "blockquote", "table", "tr", "p", "pre", "h1", "h2", "h3", "h4", "h5", "h6", "li", "option"]
+space_tags = ["th", "td"]
+break_tags = ["br"]
 ignore_tags = ["head", "script", "style"]
-pre_tags = ["pre"]
+pre_tags = ["pre", "option"]
 entities = [("&lt;", "<"),   ("&gt;", ">"),
             ("&quot;", '"'), ("&apos;", "'"),
             ("&nbsp;", " "),
@@ -85,8 +86,11 @@ def render(node, encoding='latin-1', pre=False):
                         node.is_block = True
                     else:
                         words.append(child.text)
-                        if child.name in space_tags and not (words and words[-1] and words[-1][-1] in [" ", "\t", "\n"]):
-                            words.append(" ")
+                        if child.text[-1] not in [" ", "\t", "\n"]:
+                            if child.name in space_tags:
+                                words.append(" ")
+                            if child.name in break_tags:
+                                words.append("\n")
         else:
             raise ValueError("Unexpected node type: '%s'" % child)
     if words:
diff --git a/test/check_url b/test/check_url
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..f3f7b8333
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/check_url
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+
+import sys
+import os
+
+# Warning: The following code assumes that this file is located in the svn
+# checkout directory, and hasn't been moved:
+ietfpath = os.path.abspath(__file__.rsplit("/", 1)[0] + "/..")
+sys.path.append(ietfpath)
+
+os.environ["DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE"] = "ietf.settings"
+
+from ietf.utils.soup2text import soup2text as html2text
+from difflib import unified_diff
+import urllib2 as urllib
+from ietf.tests import read_testurls
+
+django_server = os.environ.get("DJANGO_SERVER", "http://merlot.tools.ietf.org:31415")
+django_server.rstrip("/")
+
+testtuples = []
+for root, dirs, files in os.walk(ietfpath):
+    if "testurl.list" in files:
+        testtuples += read_testurls(root+"/testurl.list")
+    if "testurls.list" in files:
+        testtuples += read_testurls(root+"/testurls.list")
+testurls = dict([ (tuple[1], tuple) for tuple in testtuples ])
+
+def fetch(url):
+    file = urllib.urlopen(url)
+    html = file.read()
+    file.close()
+    return html
+
+for url in sys.argv[1:]:
+    tuple = testurls[url]
+    if len(tuple) > 2:
+        url1 = tuple[2]
+        url2 = django_server + tuple[1]
+        print "Fetching %s ..." % url1
+        text1 = html2text(fetch(url1)).split("\n")
+        print "Fetching %s ..." % url2
+        text2 = html2text(fetch(url2)).split("\n")
+        print "\n".join(unified_diff(text1, text2, url1, url2, "", "", 3, lineterm=""))
+
+
+        
\ No newline at end of file