diff --git a/ocrmypdf/__main__.py b/ocrmypdf/__main__.py
index 16b7f662..6af7af48 100755
--- a/ocrmypdf/__main__.py
+++ b/ocrmypdf/__main__.py
@@ -304,6 +304,9 @@ advanced.add_argument(
 advanced.add_argument(
     '--user-patterns', metavar='FILE',
     help="Specify the location of the Tesseract user patterns file.")
+advanced.add_argument(
+    '--interword-spaces', action='store_true',
+    help="Add spaces between words with HOCR transformation.")
 
 debugging = parser.add_argument_group(
     "Debugging",
@@ -463,7 +466,11 @@ def check_options_advanced(options, log):
             "--pdfa-image-compression argument has no effect when "
             "--output-type is not 'pdfa', 'pdfa-1', or 'pdfa-2'"
         )
-
+    if options.interword_spaces and options.pdf_renderer != 'hocr':
+        log.warning(
+            "--interword-spaces argument has no effect when "
+            "--pdf-renderer is not 'hocr'"
+        )
 
 def check_options_metadata(options, log):
     import unicodedata
diff --git a/ocrmypdf/hocrtransform.py b/ocrmypdf/hocrtransform.py
index 75faf8d3..244eec0e 100755
--- a/ocrmypdf/hocrtransform.py
+++ b/ocrmypdf/hocrtransform.py
@@ -137,7 +137,7 @@ class HocrTransform():
         return s
 
     def to_pdf(self, outFileName, imageFileName=None, showBoundingboxes=False,
-               fontname="Helvetica", invisibleText=False):
+               fontname="Helvetica", invisibleText=False, interwordSpaces=False):
         """
         Creates a PDF file with an image superimposed on top of the text.
         Text is positioned according to the bounding box of the lines in
@@ -180,7 +180,7 @@ class HocrTransform():
                 ".//%sspan[@class='ocrx_word']" % (self.xmlns)) is not None:
             elemclass = "ocrx_word"
 
-        # itterate all text elements
+        # iterate all text elements
         # light green for bounding box of word/line
         pdf.setStrokeColorRGB(1, 0, 0)
         pdf.setLineWidth(0.5)		# bounding box line width
@@ -196,6 +196,12 @@ class HocrTransform():
             if len(elemtxt) == 0:
                 continue
 
+            # if the advanced option `--interword-spaces` is true, append a space
+            # to the end of each text element to allow simpler PDF viewers such
+            # as PDF.js to better recognize words in search and copy and paste
+            if interwordSpaces:
+                elemtxt += ' '
+
             pxl_coords = self.element_coordinates(elem)
             pt = self.pt_from_pixel(pxl_coords)
 
@@ -242,10 +248,12 @@ if __name__ == "__main__":
                         help='Resolution of the image that was OCRed')
     parser.add_argument('-i', '--image', default=None,
                         help='Path to the image to be placed above the text')
+    parser.add_argument('--interword-spaces', action='store_true',
+                         default=False, help='Add spaces between words')
     parser.add_argument('hocrfile', help='Path to the hocr file to be parsed')
     parser.add_argument(
         'outputfile', help='Path to the PDF file to be generated')
     args = parser.parse_args()
 
     hocr = HocrTransform(args.hocrfile, args.resolution)
-    hocr.to_pdf(args.outputfile, args.image, args.boundingboxes)
+    hocr.to_pdf(args.outputfile, args.image, args.boundingboxes, interwordSpaces=args.interword_spaces)
diff --git a/ocrmypdf/pipeline.py b/ocrmypdf/pipeline.py
index 79f129f5..35326b88 100644
--- a/ocrmypdf/pipeline.py
+++ b/ocrmypdf/pipeline.py
@@ -639,8 +639,8 @@ def render_hocr_page(
 
     hocrtransform = HocrTransform(hocr, dpi)
     hocrtransform.to_pdf(output_file, imageFileName=None,
-                         showBoundingboxes=False, invisibleText=True)
-
+                         showBoundingboxes=False, invisibleText=True,
+                         interwordSpaces=options.interword_spaces)
 
 def flatten_groups(groups):
     for obj in groups:
@@ -664,8 +664,8 @@ def render_hocr_debug_page(
 
     hocrtransform = HocrTransform(hocr, dpi)
     hocrtransform.to_pdf(output_file, imageFileName=None,
-                         showBoundingboxes=True, invisibleText=False)
-
+                         showBoundingboxes=True, invisibleText=False,
+                         interwordSpaces=options.interword_spaces)
 
 def combine_layers(
         infiles,