diff --git a/lib/core/option.py b/lib/core/option.py
index 0bf4c6b3f..4b7e041a9 100644
--- a/lib/core/option.py
+++ b/lib/core/option.py
@@ -1073,11 +1073,11 @@ def __setHTTPExtraHeaders():
         debugMsg = "setting extra HTTP headers"
         logger.debug(debugMsg)
 
-        conf.headers = conf.headers.split("\n")
+        conf.headers = conf.headers.split("\n") if "\n" in conf.headers else conf.headers.split("\\n")
 
         for headerValue in conf.headers:
             if ":" in headerValue:
-                header, value = headerValue.split(":")
+                header, value = (_.lstrip() for _ in headerValue.split(":"))
 
                 if header and value:
                     conf.httpHeaders.append((header, value))
diff --git a/lib/parse/cmdline.py b/lib/parse/cmdline.py
index 1ef689c77..d3fc3c5e6 100644
--- a/lib/parse/cmdline.py
+++ b/lib/parse/cmdline.py
@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ def cmdLineParser():
                            help="HTTP Referer header")
 
         request.add_option("--headers", dest="headers",
-                           help="Extra HTTP headers newline separated")
+                           help="Extra headers (e.g. \"Accept-Language: fr\\nETag: 123\")")
 
         request.add_option("--auth-type", dest="aType",
                            help="HTTP authentication type "
diff --git a/sqlmap.conf b/sqlmap.conf
index 6a1f0d3c7..28bd5386f 100644
--- a/sqlmap.conf
+++ b/sqlmap.conf
@@ -70,7 +70,6 @@ referer =
 rParam = 
 
 # Extra HTTP headers
-# Note: There must be a space at the beginning of each header line.
 headers = Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
  Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
  Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-15,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7