diff --git a/core/org.eclipse.cdt.ui/src/org/eclipse/cdt/internal/ui/text/HTML2TextReader.java b/core/org.eclipse.cdt.ui/src/org/eclipse/cdt/internal/ui/text/HTML2TextReader.java
index 1e1fd0f323e..7e0b3a0e15a 100644
--- a/core/org.eclipse.cdt.ui/src/org/eclipse/cdt/internal/ui/text/HTML2TextReader.java
+++ b/core/org.eclipse.cdt.ui/src/org/eclipse/cdt/internal/ui/text/HTML2TextReader.java
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*******************************************************************************
- * Copyright (c) 2000 2005 IBM Corporation and others.
+ * Copyright (c) 2000, 2007 IBM Corporation and others.
  * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials
  * are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0
  * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
  * Contributors:
  *     IBM Corporation - initial API and implementation
  *     QNX Software System
+ *     Markus Schorn (Wind River Systems)
  *******************************************************************************/
 package org.eclipse.cdt.internal.ui.text;
 
@@ -110,7 +111,7 @@ public class HTML2TextReader extends SubstitutionTextReader {
 	private String html2Text(String html) {
 		
 		String tag= html;
-		if ('/' == tag.charAt(0))
+		if (tag.length() > 0 && '/' == tag.charAt(0))
 			tag= tag.substring(1);
 			
 		if (!fgTags.contains(tag))