diff --git a/libqpdf/ContentNormalizer.cc b/libqpdf/ContentNormalizer.cc
index 47830f42..9da6fa1c 100644
--- a/libqpdf/ContentNormalizer.cc
+++ b/libqpdf/ContentNormalizer.cc
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@ ContentNormalizer::ContentNormalizer() :
 void
 ContentNormalizer::handleToken(QPDFTokenizer::Token const& token)
 {
-    std::string value = token.getRawValue();
     QPDFTokenizer::token_type_e token_type = token.getType();
 
     if (token_type == QPDFTokenizer::tt_bad) {
@@ -24,6 +23,7 @@ ContentNormalizer::handleToken(QPDFTokenizer::Token const& token)
     switch (token_type) {
     case QPDFTokenizer::tt_space:
         {
+            std::string const& value = token.getRawValue();
             size_t len = value.length();
             for (size_t i = 0; i < len; ++i) {
                 char ch = value.at(i);
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ ContentNormalizer::handleToken(QPDFTokenizer::Token const& token)
                 }
             }
         }
-        break;
+        return;
 
     case QPDFTokenizer::tt_string:
         // Replacing string and name tokens in this way normalizes their representation as this will
@@ -52,12 +52,12 @@ ContentNormalizer::handleToken(QPDFTokenizer::Token const& token)
 
     default:
         writeToken(token);
-        break;
+        return;
     }
 
-    value = token.getRawValue();
-    if (((token_type == QPDFTokenizer::tt_string) || (token_type == QPDFTokenizer::tt_name)) &&
-        ((value.find('\r') != std::string::npos) || (value.find('\n') != std::string::npos))) {
+    // tt_string or tt_name
+    std::string const& value = token.getRawValue();
+    if (value.find('\r') != std::string::npos || value.find('\n') != std::string::npos) {
         write("\n");
     }
 }
diff --git a/libqpdf/QPDFObjectHandle.cc b/libqpdf/QPDFObjectHandle.cc
index 4eaa2236..f2ab1d3e 100644
--- a/libqpdf/QPDFObjectHandle.cc
+++ b/libqpdf/QPDFObjectHandle.cc
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ QPDFObjectHandle::TokenFilter::write(std::string const& str)
 void
 QPDFObjectHandle::TokenFilter::writeToken(QPDFTokenizer::Token const& token)
 {
-    std::string value = token.getRawValue();
+    std::string const& value = token.getRawValue();
     write(value.c_str(), value.length());
 }