In this paper, a combined reactive power modulation and grid current distortion improvement approach is proposed for an H6 transformer-less full-bridge single-phase photovoltaic (PV) grid-connected inverter. H6 transformer-less inverters with traditional modulation and control strategies may not satisfy the requirement of reactive power compensation or may result in more severe zero-crossing current distortion. Therefore, contrary to the traditional modulation, a novel reactive power injection space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) is proposed, which consists of two operation stages-inverter modulation and reactive power modulation. The implementation of SVPWM for reactive power modulation using a digital signal processor is also investigated. Furthermore, to suppress the current zero-crossing distortion in the reactive power injection mode, a global sliding mode function based on the proportion-integration-resonance current controller is designed, and the control law of the global sliding mode is derived. Using the segment modulation and grid current distortion improvement approach, the function of reactive current injection is implemented in commercial PV inverters, and the total harmonic distortion of the grid current is decreased significantly by more than 5% in the low-power segment, under the operating conditions of a lagging or leading power factor of 0.95. The effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed approach are verified through simulation and experiment using a 5-kVA prototype.