--- a/mdv/markdownviewer.py
+++ b/mdv/markdownviewer.py
@@ -129,6 +129,9 @@
 import io
 import os
 import sys
+
+PY3 = True if sys.version_info[0] > 2 else False
+
 import textwrap
 is_app = 0
 # code analysis for hilite:
@@ -158,6 +161,9 @@
     from HTMLParser import HTMLParser
 envget = os.environ.get
 
+if PY3:
+    unichr = chr
+
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Config
 hr_sep, txt_block_cut, code_pref, list_pref, bquote_pref, hr_ends = \
     '─', '✂', '| ', '- ', '|', '◈'