diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
index 2d2945c26a..cf80e4abe2 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
@@ -282,9 +282,9 @@ def XPath(expr):
 def xpath(elem, expr):
     return elem.xpath(expr, namespaces=XPNSMAP)
 
-def xml2str(root, pretty_print=False, strip_comments=False):
+def xml2str(root, pretty_print=False, strip_comments=False, with_tail=True):
     ans = etree.tostring(root, encoding='utf-8', xml_declaration=True,
-                          pretty_print=pretty_print)
+                          pretty_print=pretty_print, with_tail=with_tail)
 
     if strip_comments:
         ans = re.compile(r'<!--.*?-->', re.DOTALL).sub('', ans)
diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/transforms/rasterize.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/transforms/rasterize.py
index 1026b625bf..b09037498a 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/transforms/rasterize.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/transforms/rasterize.py
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ class SVGRasterizer(object):
         self.rasterize_cover()
 
     def rasterize_svg(self, elem, width=0, height=0, format='PNG'):
-        data = QByteArray(xml2str(elem))
+        data = QByteArray(xml2str(elem, with_tail=False))
         svg = QSvgRenderer(data)
         size = svg.defaultSize()
         view_box = elem.get('viewBox', elem.get('viewbox', None))