diff --git a/news/catch-YapsSyntaxError.rst b/news/catch-YapsSyntaxError.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..7e35ae76
--- /dev/null
+++ b/news/catch-YapsSyntaxError.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+**Added:**
+
+* <news item>
+
+**Changed:**
+
+* <news item>
+
+**Deprecated:**
+
+* <news item>
+
+**Removed:**
+
+* <news item>
+
+**Fixed:**
+
+* Let ``diffpy.structure`` pass the tests with ``pycifrw`` installed from ``PyPI``.
+
+**Security:**
+
+* <news item>
diff --git a/src/diffpy/structure/parsers/p_cif.py b/src/diffpy/structure/parsers/p_cif.py
index cb2f3fa1..3d0611ab 100644
--- a/src/diffpy/structure/parsers/p_cif.py
+++ b/src/diffpy/structure/parsers/p_cif.py
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@
 from contextlib import contextmanager
 
 import numpy
+from CifFile.yapps3_compiled_rt import YappsSyntaxError
 
 from diffpy.structure import Atom, Lattice, Structure
 from diffpy.structure.parsers import StructureParser
@@ -408,7 +409,7 @@ def _parseCifDataSource(self, datasource):
                     # stop after reading the first structure
                     if self.stru is not None:
                         break
-        except (StarError, ValueError, IndexError) as err:
+        except (YappsSyntaxError, StarError, ValueError, IndexError) as err:
             exc_type, exc_value, exc_traceback = sys.exc_info()
             emsg = str(err).strip()
             e = StructureFormatError(emsg)