diff --git a/GeminiFormat/GeminiParser.swift b/GeminiFormat/GeminiParser.swift
index 029af47..9edf818 100644
--- a/GeminiFormat/GeminiParser.swift
+++ b/GeminiFormat/GeminiParser.swift
@@ -54,6 +54,11 @@ public struct GeminiParser {
                 
                 if let url = URL(string: urlString, relativeTo: baseURL)?.absoluteURL {
                     doc.lines.append(.link(url, text: text))
+                } else if let escaped = urlString.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: .URLAllowed),
+                          let url = URL(string: escaped, relativeTo: baseURL)?.absoluteURL {
+                    // if URL initialization fails because there are unescaped chars in the doc, escape everything and try again.
+                    // I'm not certain, but it feels unsafe to always do this escaping
+                    doc.lines.append(.link(url, text: text))
                 } else {
                     let str: String
                     if let text = text {
@@ -113,3 +118,7 @@ fileprivate extension String {
         return index
     }
 }
+
+private extension CharacterSet {
+    static let URLAllowed = CharacterSet(charactersIn: "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789-._~:/?#[]@!$&'()*+,;=%")
+}