diff --git a/HocrConverter.py b/HocrConverter.py
index 7cf9206..33e2451 100755
--- a/HocrConverter.py
+++ b/HocrConverter.py
@@ -421,6 +421,8 @@ def to_pdf(self, imageFileNames, outFileName, fontname="Courier", fontsize=12, w
                 textContent = unicodedata.normalize("NFC",unicode(" ".join([elem for elem in map((lambda text: text.strip()),line.itertext()) if len(elem) > 0])))
               else:
                 textContent = line.text
+                if ( textContent == None ):
+                  textContent = line.findtext("%sstrong"%(self.xmlns))
                 if ( textContent == None ):
                   textContent = u""
                 textContent = textContent.rstrip()