diff --git a/doc/source/contributor/dev-quickstart.rst b/doc/source/contributor/dev-quickstart.rst
index 0c6ad6b8db..9998cacdce 100644
--- a/doc/source/contributor/dev-quickstart.rst
+++ b/doc/source/contributor/dev-quickstart.rst
@@ -63,6 +63,10 @@ well.
   on openSUSE or SLE 12, see
   `<https://software.opensuse.org/download.html?project=graphics&package=graphviz-plugins>`_.
 
+To run the tests locally, it is a requirement that your terminal emulator
+supports unicode with the ``en_US.UTF8`` locale. If you use locale-gen to
+manage your locales, make sure you have enabled ``en_US.UTF8`` in
+``/etc/locale.gen`` and rerun ``locale-gen``.
 
 Python Prerequisites
 --------------------