diff -urpN magnum-jumbo/doc/RULES magnum-jumbo2/doc/RULES
--- magnum-jumbo/doc/RULES	2012-05-19 16:20:00.343750000 +0000
+++ magnum-jumbo2/doc/RULES	2012-05-19 20:07:04.531250000 +0000
@@ -134,6 +134,19 @@ which will append the string "yes/no".
 more efficient to use, say, "Az,yes/no," for the same effect.
 
 
+	Arbitrary characters commands.
+
+Any 8-bit character can be used, inside of a Ax"str", a $c or ^c
+or within preprocessor $[c...] or ^[c...] settings. The method used
+within john, is similar to emitting an arbitrary character within
+the C language.  This syntax is \xhh where hh is 2 hex characters.
+So, Az"\x1b[2J" would append then ansi escape sequence to clear the
+screen to the end of the current password.  Or something like $\x10
+would append a new line character to the end of the word. These 
+escaped characters also work properly in all character class commands
+(listed later).
+
+
 	Length control commands.
 
 <N	reject the word unless it is less than N characters long
@@ -321,7 +334,10 @@ have the range processed "in parallel" w
 range, and "\r" to allow the range to produce repeated characters.  The
 "\r" escape is only useful if the range is "parallel" to another one or
 if there's at least one other range "parallel" to this one, because you
-should not want to actually produce duplicate rules.
+should not want to actually produce duplicate rules.  Also the \xhh
+escape works properly within the preprocessor, to allow any character.
+The preprocess rule [\x01-\xff] will be replaced with 255 characters
+(missing the NULL byte, which can not be handled by JtR)
 
 Please refer to the default configuration file for John the Ripper for
 many example uses of the features described in here.
diff -urpN magnum-jumbo/doc/RULES.bak magnum-jumbo2/doc/RULES.bak
diff -urpN magnum-jumbo/src/rpp.c magnum-jumbo2/src/rpp.c
--- magnum-jumbo/src/rpp.c	2012-05-19 16:21:59.250000000 +0000
+++ magnum-jumbo2/src/rpp.c	2012-05-19 18:31:21.015625000 +0000
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
 #include "params.h"
 #include "config.h"
 #include "rpp.h"
+#include "common.h"
 
 int rpp_init(struct rpp_context *ctx, char *subsection)
 {
@@ -84,7 +85,12 @@ static void rpp_process_rule(struct rpp_
 			}
 			/* fall through */
 		default:
-			*output++ = c;
+			if (c == 'x' && atoi16[*input] != 0x7f && atoi16[input[1]] != 0x7f) {
+				// handle hex char
+				*output++ = ((atoi16[*input]<<4)+atoi16[input[1]]);
+				input += 2;
+			} else
+				*output++ = c;
 		}
 		break;
 
@@ -107,7 +113,11 @@ static void rpp_process_rule(struct rpp_
 		while (*input && *input != ']')
 		switch (*input) {
 		case '\\':
-			if (*++input) rpp_add_char(range, c1 = *input++);
+			if (input[1] == 'x' && atoi16[input[2]] != 0x7F && atoi16[input[3]] != 0x7F) {
+				rpp_add_char(range, ((atoi16[input[2]]<<4)+atoi16[input[3]]));
+				input += 4;
+			} else 
+				if (*++input) rpp_add_char(range, c1 = *input++);
 			break;
 
 		case '-':