diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index cfdade2efbac..7ba1b6cf3808 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ matrix:
 
 install:
   - pip install -q --use-mirrors nose python-dateutil $NUMPY pep8==1.5.7 pyparsing pillow
-  - sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -qq install inkscape libav-tools mencoder
+  - sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -qq install inkscape libav-tools mencoder dvipng texlive-latex-base texlive-latex-extra texlive-fonts-recommended
   # We use --no-install-recommends to avoid pulling in additional large latex docs that we don't need
   - if [[ $BUILD_DOCS == true ]]; then sudo apt-get install -qq --no-install-recommends dvipng texlive-latex-base texlive-latex-extra texlive-fonts-recommended graphviz; fi
   - if [[ $BUILD_DOCS == true ]]; then pip install sphinx numpydoc linkchecker; fi
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/tests/baseline_images/test_backend_pdf/test_type1font_encoding.pdf b/lib/matplotlib/tests/baseline_images/test_backend_pdf/test_type1font_encoding.pdf
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..87fa296cddca
Binary files /dev/null and b/lib/matplotlib/tests/baseline_images/test_backend_pdf/test_type1font_encoding.pdf differ
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/tests/test_backend_pdf.py b/lib/matplotlib/tests/test_backend_pdf.py
index 0e693402ca16..d77536aa0d01 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/tests/test_backend_pdf.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/tests/test_backend_pdf.py
@@ -87,3 +87,13 @@ def test_multipage_keep_empty():
             pdf.savefig()
         assert os.path.exists(filename)
     os.remove(filename)
+
+
+@image_comparison(baseline_images=['test_type1font_encoding'],
+                  extensions=['pdf'])
+def test_type1font_encoding():
+    # This doesn't work
+    rcParams['font.serif'] = "Times, serif"
+    rcParams['text.usetex'] = "true"
+    fig, ax = plt.subplots()
+    ax.set_xlabel("$\gamma$")
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/type1font.py b/lib/matplotlib/type1font.py
index ba457e840959..5de9d265133c 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/type1font.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/type1font.py
@@ -333,7 +333,8 @@ def transform(self, effects):
                                            extend=effects.get('extend', 1.0)):
                 if six.PY3 and isinstance(value, int):
                     value = chr(value)
-                value = value.encode('latin-1')
+                if isinstance(value, six.text_type):
+                    value = value.encode('latin-1')
                 buffer.write(value)
             result = buffer.getvalue()
         finally: