diff --git a/contrib/win32/win32-build.txt b/contrib/win32/win32-build.txt
--- a/contrib/win32/win32-build.txt
+++ b/contrib/win32/win32-build.txt
@@ -27,6 +27,9 @@ It has the following prerequisites, at l
   add_path (you need only add_path.exe in the zip file)
       http://www.barisione.org/apps.html#add_path
 
+  Asciidoc - optional
+      http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/
+
 And, of course, Mercurial itself.
 
 Once you have all this installed and built, clone a copy of the
@@ -51,6 +54,14 @@ you can skip the first build step.
 
 Copy mfc71.dll and add_path.exe into the dist directory that just got created.
 
+Before building the installer, you have to build Mercurial HTML documentation 
+(or fix mercurial.iss to not reference the doc directory). Assuming you have an
+"asciidoc.bat" batch file somewhere in your PATH:
+
+  cd doc
+  mingw32-make ASCIIDOC=asciidoc.bat html
+  cd ..
+
 If you use ISTool, you open the C:\hg\hg-release\contrib\win32\mercurial.iss
 file and type Ctrl-F9 to compile the installer file.
 
@@ -66,6 +77,9 @@ following:
   echo [build] > setup.cfg
   echo compiler=mingw32 >> setup.cfg
   python setup.py py2exe -b 1
+  cd doc
+  mingw32-make ASCIIDOC=asciidoc.bat html
+  cd ..
   iscc contrib\win32\mercurial.iss
 
 and run it from the root of the hg repository (c:\hg\hg-release).
diff --git a/doc/Makefile b/doc/Makefile
--- a/doc/Makefile
+++ b/doc/Makefile
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ PREFIX=/usr/local
 MANDIR=$(PREFIX)/share/man
 INSTALL=install -c
 PYTHON=python
+ASCIIDOC=asciidoc
 
 all: man html
 
@@ -24,10 +25,10 @@ hg.1.gendoc.txt: ../mercurial/commands.p
 	mv $*~ $*
 
 %.xml: %.txt
-	asciidoc -d manpage -b docbook $*.txt
+	$(ASCIIDOC) -d manpage -b docbook $*.txt
 
 %.html: %.txt
-	asciidoc -b html4 $*.txt || asciidoc -b html $*.txt
+	$(ASCIIDOC) -b html4 $*.txt || $(ASCIIDOC) -b html $*.txt
 
 MANIFEST: man html
 	# tracked files are already in the main MANIFEST