diff --git a/docs/config/02-files.md b/docs/config/02-files.md
index 0bab8256c..61da153a3 100644
--- a/docs/config/02-files.md
+++ b/docs/config/02-files.md
@@ -59,6 +59,11 @@ The `files` array determines which files are included in the browser, watched, a
 * **Default.** `undefined`
 * **Description.** Set the `integrity` HTML attribute value to the `<script>` or the `<link>` tag to load the resource that matches the given pattern if the pattern is an absolute URL.
 
+### `isBinary`
+* **Type.** Boolean
+* **Default.** `undefined`
+* **Description.** Are these binary files? Non-binary files are internally converted to UTF-8 strings to go through preprocessors. Karma tries to automatically infer whether a file is binary, but the heuristics might fail if e.g. the file contains many valid ASCII characters.
+
 ## Pattern matching and `basePath`
 - All of the relative patterns will get resolved using the `basePath` first.
 - If the `basePath` is a relative path, it gets resolved to the
diff --git a/lib/config.js b/lib/config.js
index 0dff33c99..5211adf41 100644
--- a/lib/config.js
+++ b/lib/config.js
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ function createPatternObject (pattern) {
   } else if (helper.isObject(pattern) && pattern.pattern && helper.isString(pattern.pattern)) {
     return helper.isUrlAbsolute(pattern.pattern)
       ? new UrlPattern(pattern.pattern, pattern.type)
-      : new Pattern(pattern.pattern, pattern.served, pattern.included, pattern.watched, pattern.nocache, pattern.type)
+      : new Pattern(pattern.pattern, pattern.served, pattern.included, pattern.watched, pattern.nocache, pattern.type, pattern.isBinary)
   } else {
     log.warn(`Invalid pattern ${pattern}!\n\tExpected string or object with "pattern" property.`)
     return new Pattern(null, false, false, false, false)