diff --git a/src/main.rs b/src/main.rs
index 5b0feca..67d9dd9 100644
--- a/src/main.rs
+++ b/src/main.rs
@@ -3838,7 +3838,14 @@ fn main_inner() -> Result<(), Error> {
         parser.parse_pdf(ctx, file_name, page_numbers, dump_mupdf_page_xml)?;
         let mut insns = xml_tree::Element::new(
             "instructions".into(),
-            [("is-subset".into(), is_subset.to_string())],
+            [(
+                "is-subset".into(),
+                if is_subset {
+                    "True".into()
+                } else {
+                    "False".into()
+                },
+            )],
         );
         insns.text = "\n".into();
         insns.tail = "\n".into();
diff --git a/src/xml_tree.rs b/src/xml_tree.rs
index 6139ca6..4831a38 100644
--- a/src/xml_tree.rs
+++ b/src/xml_tree.rs
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 
 use quick_xml::{
     Writer,
-    events::{BytesDecl, BytesText, Event},
+    events::{BytesDecl, BytesStart, BytesText, Event},
 };
 use std::fmt;
 
@@ -183,6 +183,15 @@ impl Element {
             ElementTag::Normal(tag) if tag.is_empty() => {
                 writer.write_event(Event::Text(BytesText::new(text)))?;
             }
+            ElementTag::Normal(tag)
+                if attrib.is_empty() && text.is_empty() && children.is_empty() =>
+            {
+                // write element like `<br />` to match python instead of like `<br/>`
+                writer.write_event(Event::Empty(BytesStart::from_content(
+                    tag.clone() + " ",
+                    tag.len(),
+                )))?;
+            }
             ElementTag::Normal(tag) => {
                 let mut element_writer = writer.create_element(tag);
                 for (name, value) in attrib {
@@ -212,7 +221,10 @@ impl Element {
     ) -> std::io::Result<()> {
         let mut writer = Writer::new(writer);
         if xml_declaration {
-            writer.write_event(Event::Decl(BytesDecl::new("1.0", Some("utf-8"), None)))?;
+            // use specific string to match python
+            writer.write_event(Event::Decl(BytesDecl::from_start(
+                BytesStart::from_content("xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'", 3),
+            )))?;
             writer.write_event(Event::Text(BytesText::new("\n")))?;
         }
         self.write_to(&mut writer)