diff --git a/app/helpers/html_helper.rb b/app/helpers/html_helper.rb
index c648cf3ace..522760d7d9 100644
--- a/app/helpers/html_helper.rb
+++ b/app/helpers/html_helper.rb
@@ -1,5 +1,20 @@
 module HtmlHelper
   def strip_html(html)
-    strip_tags(html).andand.gsub(/ /i, ' ').andand.gsub(/&/i, '&')
+    squeeze_linebreaks substitute_entities strip_tags add_linebreaks html
   end
+
+  def substitute_entities(html)
+    html.andand.gsub(/ /i, ' ').andand.gsub(/&/i, '&')
+  end
+
+  def add_linebreaks(html)
+    # I know Cthulu is coming for me. Forgive me.
+    # http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/2720566
+    html.andand.gsub(/<\/h[^>]>|<br[^>]*>|<\/p>|<\/div>/, "\\1\n")
+  end
+
+  def squeeze_linebreaks(html)
+    html.andand.squeeze "\n"
+  end
+
 end
diff --git a/spec/helpers/html_helper_spec.rb b/spec/helpers/html_helper_spec.rb
index 729da60d48..4b3118ea10 100644
--- a/spec/helpers/html_helper_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/helpers/html_helper_spec.rb
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ require 'spec_helper'
 describe HtmlHelper do
   describe "stripping html from a string" do
     it "strips tags" do
-      helper.strip_html('<p><b>Hello</b> <em>world</em>!</p>').should == 'Hello world!'
+      helper.strip_html('<p><b>Hello</b> <em>world</em>!</p>').should == "Hello world!\n"
     end
 
     it "removes nbsp and amp entities" do
@@ -13,5 +13,30 @@ describe HtmlHelper do
     it "returns nil for nil input" do
       helper.strip_html(nil).should be_nil
     end
+
+    describe "line breaks" do
+      it "adds a line break after heading tags" do
+        helper.strip_html("<h1>foo</h1>").should == "foo\n";
+        helper.strip_html("<h2>foo</h2>").should == "foo\n";
+      end
+
+      it "adds a line break after br tags" do
+        helper.strip_html("foo<br>").should == "foo\n";
+        helper.strip_html("foo<br/>").should == "foo\n";
+        helper.strip_html("foo<br />").should == "foo\n";
+      end
+
+      it "adds a line break after p tags" do
+        helper.strip_html("<p>foo</p>").should == "foo\n";
+      end
+
+      it "adds a line break after div tags" do
+        helper.strip_html("<div>foo</div>").should == "foo\n";
+      end
+
+      it "squeezes multiple line breaks" do
+        helper.strip_html("<p>foo</p><br /><br>bar").should == "foo\nbar";
+      end
+    end
   end
 end