diff --git a/api/baseapi.cpp b/api/baseapi.cpp
index 3d51241834..0b80e4b967 100644
--- a/api/baseapi.cpp
+++ b/api/baseapi.cpp
@@ -1393,6 +1393,7 @@ static void AddBoxToTSV(const PageIterator* it, PageIteratorLevel level,
  * Image name/input_file_ can be set by SetInputName before calling
  * GetHOCRText
  * STL removed from original patch submission and refactored by rays.
+ * Returned string must be freed with the delete [] operator.
  */
 char* TessBaseAPI::GetHOCRText(int page_number) {
   return GetHOCRText(NULL, page_number);
@@ -1405,6 +1406,7 @@ char* TessBaseAPI::GetHOCRText(int page_number) {
  * Image name/input_file_ can be set by SetInputName before calling
  * GetHOCRText
  * STL removed from original patch submission and refactored by rays.
+ * Returned string must be freed with the delete [] operator.
  */
 char* TessBaseAPI::GetHOCRText(ETEXT_DESC* monitor, int page_number) {
   if (tesseract_ == NULL || (page_res_ == NULL && Recognize(monitor) < 0))
diff --git a/api/baseapi.h b/api/baseapi.h
index 5263b2d8d7..680b43eea4 100644
--- a/api/baseapi.h
+++ b/api/baseapi.h
@@ -591,6 +591,7 @@ class TESS_API TessBaseAPI {
    * monitor can be used to
    *  cancel the recognition
    *  receive progress callbacks
+   * Returned string must be freed with the delete [] operator.
    */
   char* GetHOCRText(ETEXT_DESC* monitor, int page_number);
 
@@ -598,6 +599,7 @@ class TESS_API TessBaseAPI {
    * Make a HTML-formatted string with hOCR markup from the internal
    * data structures.
    * page_number is 0-based but will appear in the output as 1-based.
+   * Returned string must be freed with the delete [] operator.
    */
   char* GetHOCRText(int page_number);
 
diff --git a/api/renderer.cpp b/api/renderer.cpp
index ba370d9dcc..97e787a2a4 100644
--- a/api/renderer.cpp
+++ b/api/renderer.cpp
@@ -186,11 +186,10 @@ bool TessHOcrRenderer::EndDocumentHandler() {
 }
 
 bool TessHOcrRenderer::AddImageHandler(TessBaseAPI* api) {
-  char* hocr = api->GetHOCRText(imagenum());
+  const std::unique_ptr<const char[]> hocr(api->GetHOCRText(imagenum()));
   if (hocr == NULL) return false;
 
-  AppendString(hocr);
-  delete[] hocr;
+  AppendString(hocr.get());
 
   return true;
 }