Percent sign (%) in data

When creating a template, I have test data in my data file in which I enter a percent sign (%). When I save the data, the percent sign and the character following the percent sign are deleted from the data. Why does that occur. How can you enter data that contains a percent sign?

Create a rule to return your field inside the NormalizeEntities() brackets. It will return literal text rather than assuming that the "percent symbol-letter" combination is code representing something else.