diff --git a/src/output_xhtml.cpp b/src/output_xhtml.cpp
index 9ccc4e3e78..fbd9f4bc1c 100644
--- a/src/output_xhtml.cpp
+++ b/src/output_xhtml.cpp
@@ -233,8 +233,15 @@ namespace {
 
 bool XHTMLStream::closeFontTags()
 {
+	if (isTagPending(parsep_tag))
+		// we haven't had any content
+		return true;
+
+	// this may be a useless check, since we ought at least to have
+	// the parsep_tag. but it can't hurt too much to be careful.
 	if (tag_stack_.empty())
 		return true;
+
 	// first, we close any open font tags we can close
 	html::StartTag curtag = tag_stack_.back();
 	while (html::isFontTag(curtag.tag_)) {
@@ -429,6 +436,17 @@ bool XHTMLStream::isTagOpen(string const & stag) const
 }
 
 
+bool XHTMLStream::isTagPending(string const & stag) const
+{
+	TagStack::const_iterator sit = pending_tags_.begin();
+	TagStack::const_iterator const sen = pending_tags_.end();
+	for (; sit != sen; ++sit)
+		if (sit->tag_ == stag)
+			return true;
+	return false;
+}
+
+
 // this is complicated, because we want to make sure that
 // everything is properly nested. the code ought to make 
 // sure of that, but we won't assert (yet) if we run into
diff --git a/src/output_xhtml.h b/src/output_xhtml.h
index e214da87f0..497ffdbce0 100644
--- a/src/output_xhtml.h
+++ b/src/output_xhtml.h
@@ -146,6 +146,8 @@ private:
 	///
 	bool isTagOpen(std::string const &) const;
 	///
+	bool isTagPending(std::string const &) const;
+	///
 	void writeError(std::string const &) const;
 	///
 	odocstream & os_;