diff --git a/_extensions/odoo/pycompat.py b/_extensions/odoo/pycompat.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..804a2a0ba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/_extensions/odoo/pycompat.py
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+import sys
+
+PY2 = sys.version_info[0] == 2
+
+if PY2:
+    text_type = unicode
+else:
+    text_type = str
+
+def to_text(source):
+    """ Generates a text value (an instance of text_type) from an arbitrary 
+    source.
+
+    * False and None are converted to empty strings
+    * text is passed through
+    * bytes are decoded as UTF-8
+    * rest is textified via the current version's relevant data model method
+    """
+    if source is None or source is False:
+        return u''
+
+    if isinstance(source, bytes):
+        return source.decode('utf-8')
+
+    return text_type(source)
+
diff --git a/_extensions/odoo/translator.py b/_extensions/odoo/translator.py
index 617126f13..34739d870 100644
--- a/_extensions/odoo/translator.py
+++ b/_extensions/odoo/translator.py
@@ -8,6 +8,8 @@ from docutils import nodes
 from sphinx import addnodes, util
 from sphinx.locale import admonitionlabels
 
+from . import pycompat
+
 
 def _parents(node):
     while node.parent:
@@ -59,7 +61,7 @@ class BootstrapTranslator(nodes.NodeVisitor, object):
         self.param_separator = ','
 
     def encode(self, text):
-        return unicode(text).translate({
+        return pycompat.to_text(text).translate({
             ord('&'): u'&',
             ord('<'): u'&lt;',
             ord('"'): u'&quot;',
@@ -68,7 +70,7 @@ class BootstrapTranslator(nodes.NodeVisitor, object):
         })
 
     def starttag(self, node, tagname, **attributes):
-        tagname = unicode(tagname).lower()
+        tagname = pycompat.to_text(tagname).lower()
 
         # extract generic attributes
         attrs = {name.lower(): value for name, value in attributes.items()}
@@ -103,7 +105,7 @@ class BootstrapTranslator(nodes.NodeVisitor, object):
     # only "space characters" SPACE, CHARACTER TABULATION, LINE FEED,
     # FORM FEED and CARRIAGE RETURN should be collapsed, not al White_Space
     def attval(self, value, whitespace=re.compile(u'[ \t\n\f\r]')):
-        return self.encode(whitespace.sub(u' ', unicode(value)))
+        return self.encode(whitespace.sub(u' ', pycompat.to_text(value)))
 
     def astext(self):
         return u''.join(self.body)