diff --git a/tools/check-translation-status.sh b/tools/check-translation-status.sh
index 269e3961a6..9b802b23e4 100755
--- a/tools/check-translation-status.sh
+++ b/tools/check-translation-status.sh
@@ -54,6 +54,10 @@ fi
 A=$(echo "$FILE" | sed -E "s/\.[a-z][a-z]\.$EXT//")
 # get change date of English file
 EN=$A.en.$EXT
+if [ ! -e "$EN" ]; then
+  out "English file does not exist. Aborting. ($EN)"
+  exit 2
+fi
 endate=$(git log --pretty="%cd" --date=raw -1 "$EN"|cut -d' ' -f1)
 # Convert to YYYY-MM-DD
 ymd=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d" --date="@$endate")
diff --git a/tools/encoding-convert.sh b/tools/encoding-convert.sh
index 6ed2e12be3..9ed0e7d18d 100755
--- a/tools/encoding-convert.sh
+++ b/tools/encoding-convert.sh
@@ -1,15 +1,29 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 
+DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" >/dev/null 2>&1 && pwd )"
+
+# Select files
 #FILES=$(git grep -i -l "<\?xml.*encoding=\"iso" .)
 FILES=$(find . -type f)
 
 while read -r file; do
   enc=$(file --mime-encoding ${file} | cut -d" " -f2)
+  # Only run if not correct encoding, and if XML, XHTML, or XSL file
   if [ "${enc}" != "utf-8" ] && [ "${enc}" != "us-ascii" ] && [ $(echo $file | grep -qoE "(\.xml$|\.xhtml$|\.xsl$)"; echo $?) -eq 0 ]; then
-    iconv -f ${enc} -t UTF-8 ${file} -o ${file}.utf8
-    sed -Ei "s@(<?xml.*)($enc|iso-8859-1|iso-8859-2|iso8859-1)@\1UTF-8@I" ${file}.utf8
-    mv ${file}.utf8 ${file}
-    enc_new=$(file --mime-encoding ${file} | cut -d" " -f2)
-    echo "Converted $file from $enc to $enc_new"
+    # Only run if file is not outdated
+    trstatus=$(tools/check-translation-status.sh -f "$file" -q; echo $?)
+    if [ $trstatus = 0 ]; then
+      # Convert to UTF-8
+      iconv -f ${enc} -t UTF-8 ${file} -o ${file}.utf8
+      # Replace XML encoding in first line
+      sed -Ei "s@^<\?xml.*($enc|iso-8859-1|iso-8859-2|iso8859-1).*@<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" ?>@I" ${file}.utf8
+      # Move edited file to original location
+      mv ${file}.utf8 ${file}
+      # Status report
+      enc_new=$(file --mime-encoding ${file} | cut -d" " -f2)
+      echo "Converted $file from $enc to $enc_new"
+    elif [ $trstatus = 1 ]; then
+      echo "WARNING: $file is outdated"
+    fi
   fi
 done <<< "${FILES}"