diff --git a/checklist/editor.py b/checklist/editor.py
index 51dde25..ac4214c 100644
--- a/checklist/editor.py
+++ b/checklist/editor.py
@@ -478,9 +478,9 @@ def visual_suggest(self, templates, **kwargs):
         tagged_keys = find_all_keys(templates)
         template_strs = get_all_strings_ordered(templates)
         items = self._get_fillin_items(tagged_keys, max_count=5, **kwargs)
+
         kwargs["verbose"] = False
         mask_suggests = self.suggest(templates, **kwargs)
-
         if not mask_suggests:
             raise Exception('No valid suggestions for the given template!')
         self.selected_suggestions = []
@@ -490,7 +490,8 @@ def visual_suggest(self, templates, **kwargs):
             tag_dict=items,
             mask_suggests=mask_suggests[:50],
             format_fn=recursive_format,
-            select_suggests_fn=self._set_selected_suggestions
+            select_suggests_fn=self._set_selected_suggestions,
+            tokenizer=self.tg.tokenizer
         )
 
     def add_lexicon(self, name, values, overwrite=False):
diff --git a/checklist/viewer/template_editor.py b/checklist/viewer/template_editor.py
index 97decd1..0d0cff6 100644
--- a/checklist/viewer/template_editor.py
+++ b/checklist/viewer/template_editor.py
@@ -3,8 +3,6 @@
 import os
 import typing
 import itertools
-from spacy.attrs import LEMMA, ORTH, NORM
-from spacy.lang.en import English
 
 try:
     from IPython.core.display import display, Javascript
@@ -37,51 +35,54 @@ def __init__(self, \
         mask_suggests: typing.List[typing.Union[str, tuple]], \
         format_fn: typing.Callable, \
         select_suggests_fn: typing.Callable, \
+        tokenizer, \
         **kwargs):
         widgets.DOMWidget.__init__(self, **kwargs)
         self.format_fn = format_fn
         self.select_suggests_fn = select_suggests_fn
-
-        nlp = English()
         # ONLY do tokenization here
-        self.tokenizer = nlp.Defaults.create_tokenizer(nlp)
+        self.tokenizer = tokenizer
         self.bert_suggests = mask_suggests
         self.templates = [
             self.tokenize_template_str(s, tagged_keys, tag_dict) for \
             s in template_strs]
         self.on_msg(self.handle_events)
 
+
     def tokenize_template_str(self, template_str, tagged_keys, tag_dict, max_count=5):
         tagged_keys = list(tagged_keys)
         trans_keys = ["{" + key + "}" for key in tagged_keys]
-        #keys = list(fillins.keys()) + [bert_key]
-        for idx, key in enumerate(tagged_keys):
-            case = [{LEMMA: key.split(":")[-1], NORM: key, ORTH: trans_keys[idx] }]
-            self.tokenizer.add_special_case(trans_keys[idx], case)
-        tokens = self.tokenizer(template_str)
-        template_tokens = []
         item_keys = [x[0] for x in tag_dict.items()]
         item_vals = [[x[1][:max_count]] if type(x[1]) not in [list, tuple] else x[1][:max_count] for x in tag_dict.items()]
         local_items = []
+        for idx, key in enumerate(tagged_keys):
+            self.tokenizer.add_tokens(trans_keys[idx])
         for item_val in itertools.product(*item_vals):
             if len(item_val) != len(set([str(x) for x in item_val])):
                 continue
             local_item = {item_keys[i]: item_val[i] for i, _ in enumerate(item_val)}
             local_items.append(local_item)
-
-        for t in tokens:
-            if t.norm_ in tagged_keys:
-                tag = t.norm_
+            
+        def _tokenize(text):
+            tokens = [self.tokenizer.decode(x) for x in self.tokenizer.encode(text, add_special_tokens=False)]
+            return [t for t in tokens if t]
+        def get_meta(text):
+            if text in trans_keys:
+                idx = trans_keys.index(text)
+                norm = tagged_keys[idx]
+                lemma = norm.split(":")[-1]
+                normalized_key = lemma.split('[')[0].split('.')[0]
                 texts = list()
                 for local_item in local_items:
                     try:
-                        text = self.format_fn(["{" + t.lemma_  +"}"], local_item)[0]
-                        texts.append(text)
+                        texts.append(self.format_fn(["{" + lemma  +"}"], local_item)[0])
                     except:
                         pass
-                template_tokens.append((texts, t.norm_, t.lemma_.split('[')[0].split('.')[0]))
+                return (texts, norm, normalized_key)
             else:
-                template_tokens.append(t.text)
+                return text
+        
+        template_tokens = [get_meta(t) for t in _tokenize(template_str)]
         return template_tokens
 
     def handle_events(self, _, content, buffers):