diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 6b7621771..8b1906e77 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -96,6 +96,7 @@ $Id$
   designer, thanks to Sutharshan Balachandren.
 - bug #2983062, patch #2989408 [engines] Fix warnings when changing table
   engine to Maria, thanks to Madhura Jayaratne.
+- bug #2974067 [display] non-binary fields shown as hex
 
 3.3.2.0 (2010-04-13)
 - patch #2969449 [core] Name for MERGE engine varies depending on the
diff --git a/libraries/common.lib.php b/libraries/common.lib.php
index f8dcc6029..76ebb0600 100644
--- a/libraries/common.lib.php
+++ b/libraries/common.lib.php
@@ -2600,8 +2600,19 @@ function PMA_printable_bit_value($value, $length) {
 }
 
 /**
- * Converts a BIT type default value
- * for example, b'010' becomes 010
+ * Verifies whether the value contains a non-printable character 
+ *
+ * @uses    preg_match()
+ * @param   string $value 
+ * @return  boolean 
+ */
+function PMA_contains_nonprintable_ascii($value) {
+    return preg_match('@[^[:print:]]@', $value);
+}
+
+/**
+ * Converts a BIT type default value  
+ * for example, b'010' becomes 010 
  *
  * @uses    strtr()
  * @param   string $bit_default_value
diff --git a/libraries/display_tbl.lib.php b/libraries/display_tbl.lib.php
index e99b97c6d..82ab6fbad 100644
--- a/libraries/display_tbl.lib.php
+++ b/libraries/display_tbl.lib.php
@@ -1378,7 +1378,7 @@ function PMA_displayTableBody(&$dt_result, &$is_display, $map, $analyzed_sql) {
                         if ($_SESSION['tmp_user_values']['display_binary']) {
                             // user asked to see the real contents of BINARY
                             // fields
-                            if ($_SESSION['tmp_user_values']['display_binary_as_hex']) {
+                            if ($_SESSION['tmp_user_values']['display_binary_as_hex'] && PMA_contains_nonprintable_ascii($row[$i])) {
                             	$row[$i] = bin2hex($row[$i]);
 							}
 							else {