diff --git a/src/pdftableextract/core.py b/src/pdftableextract/core.py
index d1dce80..cb35889 100644
--- a/src/pdftableextract/core.py
+++ b/src/pdftableextract/core.py
@@ -305,8 +305,6 @@ def isDiv(a, l,r,t,b) :
 #-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 # fork out to extract text for each cell.
 
-  whitespace = re.compile( r'\s+')
-   
   def getCell( (i,j,u,v) ):
     (l,r,t,b) = ( vd[2*i+1] , vd[ 2*(i+u) ], hd[2*j+1], hd[2*(j+v)] )
     p = popen("pdftotext", 
@@ -316,7 +314,7 @@ def getCell( (i,j,u,v) ):
     
     ret = p.communicate()[0]
     if whitespace != 'raw' :
-      ret = whitespace.sub( "" if whitespace == "none" else " ", ret )
+      ret = re.compile( r'\s+').sub( "" if whitespace == "none" else " ", ret )
       if len(ret) > 0 :
         ret = ret[ (1 if ret[0]==' ' else 0) : 
                    len(ret) - (1 if ret[-1]==' ' else 0) ]