diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 9c31c781..6968781c 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+2024-08-06  M Holger  <m.holger@qpdf.org>
+
+	* Bug fix: when writing real numbers as JSON ensure that they don't
+	have a trailing decimal point. Fixes #1261.
+
 2024-07-14  M Holger  <m.holger@qpdf.org>
 
 	* Bug fix: handle named destinations where the entry is a
diff --git a/libqpdf/QPDF_Real.cc b/libqpdf/QPDF_Real.cc
index f4304397..df3eaa61 100644
--- a/libqpdf/QPDF_Real.cc
+++ b/libqpdf/QPDF_Real.cc
@@ -52,4 +52,7 @@ QPDF_Real::writeJSON(int json_version, JSON::Writer& p)
     } else {
         p << this->val;
     }
+    if (val.back() == '.') {
+        p << "0";
+    }
 }
diff --git a/libtests/json.cc b/libtests/json.cc
index 4f4cff8e..b17434ac 100644
--- a/libtests/json.cc
+++ b/libtests/json.cc
@@ -111,6 +111,7 @@ test_main()
         check(QPDFObjectHandle::newReal(".34").getJSON(i), "0.34");
         check(QPDFObjectHandle::newReal("-0.56").getJSON(i), "-0.56");
         check(QPDFObjectHandle::newReal("-.78").getJSON(i), "-0.78");
+        check(QPDFObjectHandle::newReal("-78.").getJSON(i), "-78.0");
     }
     JSON jmap2 = JSON::parse(R"({"a": 1, "b": "two", "c": [true]})");
     std::map<std::string, std::string> dvalue;