diff --git a/lib/cli/cli.php b/lib/cli/cli.php
index 5fe2604..f449727 100755
--- a/lib/cli/cli.php
+++ b/lib/cli/cli.php
@@ -153,13 +153,45 @@ function menu( $items, $default = null, $title = 'Choose an item' ) {
 }
 
 /**
- * An encoding-safe way of getting string length.
+ * Attempts an encoding-safe way of getting string length. If mb_string extensions aren't
+ * installed, falls back to basic strlen if no encoding is present
  *
  * @param string The string to check
  * @return int Numeric value that represents the string's length
  */
 function safe_strlen( $str ) {
-	return mb_strlen( $str, mb_detect_encoding( $str ) );
+	if ( function_exists( 'mb_strlen' ) ) {
+		$length =  mb_strlen( $str, mb_detect_encoding( $str ) );
+	} else {
+		// iconv will return PHP notice if non-ascii characters are present in input string
+		$str = iconv( 'ASCII' , 'ASCII', $str );
+
+		$length = strlen( $str );
+	}
+
+	return $length;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Attempts an encoding-safe way of getting a substring. If mb_string extensions aren't
+ * installed, falls back to ascii substring if no encoding is present
+ * 		
+ * @param  string  $str  The input string
+ * @param  int     $start   The starting position of the substring
+ * @param  boolean $length  Maximum length of the substring
+ * @return string           Substring of string specified by start and length parameters
+ */
+function safe_substr( $str, $start, $length = false ) {
+	if ( function_exists( 'mb_substr' ) ) {
+		$substr = mb_substr( $str, $start, $length, mb_detect_encoding( $str ) );
+	} else {
+		// iconv will return PHP notice if non-ascii characters are present in input string
+		$str = iconv( 'ASCII' , 'ASCII', $str );
+		
+		$substr = substr( $str, $start, $length );
+	}
+
+	return $substr;
 }
 
 /**
diff --git a/lib/cli/table/Ascii.php b/lib/cli/table/Ascii.php
index 2270a5d..faf2278 100644
--- a/lib/cli/table/Ascii.php
+++ b/lib/cli/table/Ascii.php
@@ -132,15 +132,15 @@ public function row( array $row ) {
 			$col_width = $this->_widths[ $col ];
 			$original_val_width = Colors::length( $value );
 			if ( $original_val_width > $col_width ) {
-				$row[ $col ] = mb_substr( $value, 0, $col_width, mb_detect_encoding( $value ) );
-				$value = mb_substr( $value, $col_width, $original_val_width, mb_detect_encoding( $value ) );
+				$row[ $col ] = \cli\safe_substr( $value, 0, $col_width );
+				$value = \cli\safe_substr( $value, $col_width, $original_val_width );
 				$i = 0;
 				do {
-					$extra_value = mb_substr( $value, 0, $col_width, mb_detect_encoding( $value ) );
-					$val_width = mb_strlen( $extra_value, mb_detect_encoding( $extra_value ) );
+					$extra_value = \cli\safe_substr( $value, 0, $col_width );
+					$val_width = \cli\safe_strlen( $extra_value );
 					if ( $val_width ) {
 						$extra_rows[ $col ][] = $extra_value;
-						$value = mb_substr( $value, $col_width, $original_val_width, mb_detect_encoding( $value ) );
+						$value = \cli\safe_substr( $value, $col_width, $original_val_width );
 						$i++;
 						if ( $i > $extra_row_count ) {
 							$extra_row_count = $i;
diff --git a/tests/test-cli.php b/tests/test-cli.php
index 36b823f..06540f3 100644
--- a/tests/test-cli.php
+++ b/tests/test-cli.php
@@ -24,6 +24,13 @@ function test_encoded_string_length() {
 
 	}
 
+	function test_encoded_substr() {
+
+		$this->assertEquals( \cli\safe_substr( \cli\Colors::pad( 'hello', 6), 0, 2 ), 'he' );
+		$this->assertEquals( \cli\safe_substr( \cli\Colors::pad( 'óra', 6), 0, 2 ), 'ór'  );
+
+	}
+
 	function test_colorized_string_length() {
 		$this->assertEquals( \cli\Colors::length( \cli\Colors::colorize( '%Gx%n', true ) ), 1 );
 	}