diff --git a/HocrHeaderFixer.cs b/HocrHeaderFixer.cs
index beb2e07..74a58cf 100644
--- a/HocrHeaderFixer.cs
+++ b/HocrHeaderFixer.cs
@@ -19,20 +19,12 @@ public void Init()
         Console.WriteLine("Fixing hOCR file headers...");
     }
 
-    public void Process(string hocrFile, XDocument hocrXml)
+    public bool Process(string hocrFile, XDocument hocrXml)
     {
         XNamespace ns = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml";
         var head = hocrXml.Element(ns + "html").Element(ns + "head");
         head.Element(ns + "title").Value = "Image: " + FileName ?? Regex.Replace(Path.GetFileName(hocrFile), "_HOCR.shtml$", "_JP2.jpg");
         head.Add(new XElement(ns + "meta", new XAttribute("name", "ocr-system"), new XAttribute("content", HtrId.HasValue ? $"Transkribus-HtrId:{HtrId}" : "Transkribus")));
-        using var fileStream = File.Open(hocrFile, FileMode.Truncate);
-        var writer = XmlWriter.Create(fileStream, new XmlWriterSettings
-        {
-            // need to specify false here to stop it from emitting a byte order mark
-            Encoding = new UTF8Encoding(false),
-            Indent = true
-        });
-        hocrXml.Save(writer);
-        writer.Close();
+        return true;
     }
 }
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/IHocrXmlProcessor.cs b/IHocrXmlProcessor.cs
index 874c291..eed261f 100644
--- a/IHocrXmlProcessor.cs
+++ b/IHocrXmlProcessor.cs
@@ -2,6 +2,16 @@
 
 interface IHocrXmlProcessor
 {
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Used to set up any initial state, such as creating directories
+    /// </summary>
     void Init();
-    void Process(string hocrFile, XDocument hocrXml);
+    
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Receives each hOCR xml tree for processing
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <param name="hocrFile">Path to the hOCR file</param>
+    /// <param name="hocrXml">Xml tree representing the hOCR file</param>
+    /// <returns>True if the xml tree was modified and needs to be saved back to the file.</returns>
+    bool Process(string hocrFile, XDocument hocrXml);
 }
diff --git a/OcrGenerator.cs b/OcrGenerator.cs
index 3f11e9f..e90858f 100644
--- a/OcrGenerator.cs
+++ b/OcrGenerator.cs
@@ -16,14 +16,14 @@ public void Init()
         Directory.CreateDirectory(OcrDirectory);
     }
 
-    public void Process(string hocrFile, XDocument hocrXml)
+    public bool Process(string hocrFile, XDocument hocrXml)
     {
         var text = new StringBuilder();
         XNamespace ns = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml";
         foreach (var paragraph in hocrXml.Descendants(ns + "p"))
         {
-            var lines = paragraph.Elements(ns + "span").Where(span => span.Attribute("class")?.Value == "ocr_line"); 
-            foreach (var line in lines) 
+            var lines = paragraph.Elements(ns + "span").Where(span => span.Attribute("class")?.Value == "ocr_line");
+            foreach (var line in lines)
             {
                 var words = line.Elements(ns + "span").Select(span => span.Value);
                 text.AppendJoin(' ', words);
@@ -33,5 +33,6 @@ public void Process(string hocrFile, XDocument hocrXml)
         }
         var ocrFile = Path.Join(OcrDirectory, Regex.Replace(Path.GetFileName(hocrFile), "_HOCR.shtml$", "_OCR.asc"));
         File.WriteAllText(ocrFile, text.ToString().Trim());
+        return false;
     }
 }
diff --git a/Processor.cs b/Processor.cs
index e161089..17145ac 100644
--- a/Processor.cs
+++ b/Processor.cs
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
 using System.Text;
 using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
+using System.Xml;
 using System.Xml.Linq;
 using Flurl.Http;
 
@@ -50,10 +51,12 @@ public async Task<byte[]> ProcessSinglePage(Uri fileUri, MicroservicePageOptions
             Directory.CreateDirectory(Jp2Directory);
             await File.WriteAllBytesAsync(Path.Join(Jp2Directory, Path.GetFileName(fileUri.LocalPath)), sourceFile);
             await ConvertJp2sToJpgs();
-            var page = await SendSinglePageToTranskribus(options);            
+            var page = await SendSinglePageToTranskribus(options);
             await GetSinglePageTranskribusAltoXml(page);
             await ConvertAltoToHocr();
-            ProcessHocrXml(new HocrHeaderFixer(options.HtrId, Path.GetFileName(fileUri.LocalPath)));
+            ProcessHocrXml(
+                new HocrHeaderFixer(options.HtrId, Path.GetFileName(fileUri.LocalPath)),
+                new WordAlignmentFixer());
             var hocrFile = Directory.EnumerateFiles(HocrDirectory).Single();
             return await File.ReadAllBytesAsync(hocrFile);
         }
@@ -110,14 +113,14 @@ public async Task CheckProgress(IdCrudOptions options)
             DeleteDirectoryIfExists(OcrDirectory);
         }
     }
-    
+
     public async Task CreateOcrDatastreamsFromHocr(OcrOptions options)
     {
         string pidFilePath = null;
         try
         {
-            pidFilePath = options.PidFile is null 
-                ? await GetPagePids(options, options.Pid) 
+            pidFilePath = options.PidFile is null
+                ? await GetPagePids(options, options.Pid)
                 : Path.GetFullPath(options.PidFile);
             await GetHocrDatastreams(options, pidFilePath);
             ProcessHocrXml(new OcrGenerator(OcrDirectory));
@@ -401,9 +404,22 @@ void ProcessHocrXml(params IHocrXmlProcessor[] processors)
         foreach (var hocrFile in Directory.EnumerateFiles(HocrDirectory))
         {
             var xml = XDocument.Load(hocrFile);
+            var xmlModified = false;
             foreach (var processor in processors)
             {
-                processor.Process(hocrFile, xml);
+                xmlModified |= processor.Process(hocrFile, xml);
+            }
+            if (xmlModified)
+            {
+                using var fileStream = File.Open(hocrFile, FileMode.Create);
+                var writer = XmlWriter.Create(fileStream, new XmlWriterSettings
+                {
+                    // need to specify false here to stop it from emitting a byte order mark
+                    Encoding = new UTF8Encoding(false),
+                    Indent = true
+                });
+                xml.Save(writer);
+                writer.Close();
             }
         }
     }
diff --git a/WordAlignmentFixer.cs b/WordAlignmentFixer.cs
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e050ec3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/WordAlignmentFixer.cs
@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
+using System.Xml.Linq;
+
+partial class WordAlignmentFixer : IHocrXmlProcessor
+{
+    public void Init()
+    {
+        Console.WriteLine("Fixing horizontal word alignment...");
+    }
+
+    public bool Process(string hocrFile, XDocument hocrXml)
+    {
+        XNamespace ns = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml";
+        foreach (var paragraph in hocrXml.Descendants(ns + "p"))
+        {
+            var lines = paragraph.Elements(ns + "span").Where(span => span.Attribute("class")?.Value == "ocr_line");
+            foreach (var line in lines)
+            {
+                var lineAttributes = line.Attribute("title").Value;
+                var lineBbox = BboxRegex().Match(lineAttributes).Groups
+                    .Cast<Group>()
+                    .Skip(1)
+                    .Select(g => int.Parse(g.Value))
+                    .ToArray();
+                var words = line.Elements(ns + "span");
+                // # of characters = sum of word lengths + the spaces between
+                var lineCharLength = words.Sum(w => w.Value.Length) + words.Count() - 1;
+                var linePixLength = lineBbox[2] - lineBbox[0];
+                var pixPerChar = linePixLength / lineCharLength;
+                var currentPosition = lineBbox[0];
+                foreach (var word in words)
+                {
+                    var newLeft = currentPosition;
+                    var newRight = currentPosition += word.Value.Length * pixPerChar;
+                    var newBbox = $"bbox {newLeft} {lineBbox[1]} {newRight} {lineBbox[3]}";
+                    word.Attribute("title").SetValue(BboxRegex().Replace(word.Attribute("title").Value, newBbox));
+                    currentPosition += pixPerChar;
+                }
+            }
+        }
+        return true;
+    }
+
+    [GeneratedRegex(@"bbox (\d+) (\d+) (\d+) (\d+)")]
+    private static partial Regex BboxRegex();
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/transkribus-process.csproj b/transkribus-process.csproj
index b0e856c..d9f8d2f 100644
--- a/transkribus-process.csproj
+++ b/transkribus-process.csproj
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
     <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
     <RootNamespace>transkribus_process</RootNamespace>
     <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
-    <Version>1.1.0</Version>
+    <Version>1.2.0</Version>
   </PropertyGroup>
 
   <ItemGroup>