diff --git a/doc/Makefile b/doc/Makefile
--- a/doc/Makefile
+++ b/doc/Makefile
@@ -6,7 +6,6 @@ PREFIX=/usr/local
 MANDIR=$(PREFIX)/share/man
 INSTALL=install -c -m 644
 PYTHON=python
-RST2HTML=$(shell which rst2html 2> /dev/null || echo rst2html.py)
 
 export LANGUAGE=C
 export LC_ALL=C
@@ -25,11 +24,11 @@ hg.1.gendoc.txt: $(GENDOC)
 	mv $@.tmp $@
 
 %: %.txt common.txt
-	$(PYTHON) rst2man.py --halt warning \
+	$(PYTHON) runrst manpage --halt warning \
 	  --strip-elements-with-class htmlonly $*.txt $*
 
 %.html: %.txt common.txt
-	$(RST2HTML) --halt warning \
+	$(PYTHON) runrst html --halt warning \
 	  --link-stylesheet --stylesheet-path style.css $*.txt $*.html
 
 MANIFEST: man html
diff --git a/doc/rst2man.py b/doc/manpage.py
old mode 100755
new mode 100644
rename from doc/rst2man.py
rename to doc/manpage.py
--- a/doc/rst2man.py
+++ b/doc/manpage.py
@@ -1099,11 +1099,4 @@ class Translator(nodes.NodeVisitor):
         raise NotImplementedError('visiting unimplemented node type: %s'
                                   % node.__class__.__name__)
 
-# The following part is taken from the Docutils rst2man.py script:
-if __name__ == "__main__":
-    from docutils.core import publish_cmdline, default_description
-    description = ("Generates plain unix manual documents.  " +
-                   default_description)
-    publish_cmdline(writer=Writer(), description=description)
-
 # vim: set fileencoding=utf-8 et ts=4 ai :
diff --git a/doc/runrst b/doc/runrst
new file mode 100755
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/runrst
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+#
+# runrst - register custom roles and run correct writer
+#
+# Copyright 2010 Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com> and others
+#
+# This software may be used and distributed according to the terms of the
+# GNU General Public License version 2 or any later version.
+
+"""usage: %s WRITER args...
+
+where WRITER is the name of a Docutils writer such as 'html' or 'manpage'
+"""
+
+import sys
+from docutils.core import publish_cmdline
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    if len(sys.argv) < 2:
+        sys.stderr.write(__doc__ % sys.argv[0])
+        sys.exit(1)
+
+    writer = sys.argv[1]
+    del sys.argv[1]
+
+    publish_cmdline(writer_name=writer)
diff --git a/tests/hghave b/tests/hghave
--- a/tests/hghave
+++ b/tests/hghave
@@ -120,12 +120,12 @@ def has_lsprof():
 def has_git():
     return matchoutput('git --version 2>&1', r'^git version')
 
-def has_rst2html():
-    for name in ('rst2html', 'rst2html.py'):
-        name = name + ' --version 2>&1'
-        if matchoutput(name, r'^rst2html(?:\.py)? \(Docutils'):
-            return True
-    return False
+def has_docutils():
+    try:
+        from docutils.core import publish_cmdline
+        return True
+    except ImportError:
+        return False
 
 def has_svn():
     return matchoutput('svn --version 2>&1', r'^svn, version') and \
@@ -198,7 +198,7 @@ checks = {
     "outer-repo": (has_outer_repo, "outer repo"),
     "p4": (has_p4, "Perforce server and client"),
     "pygments": (has_pygments, "Pygments source highlighting library"),
-    "rst2html": (has_rst2html, "Docutils rst2html tool"),
+    "docutils": (has_docutils, "Docutils text processing library"),
     "svn": (has_svn, "subversion client and admin tools"),
     "svn-bindings": (has_svn_bindings, "subversion python bindings"),
     "symlink": (has_symlink, "symbolic links"),
diff --git a/tests/test-gendoc b/tests/test-gendoc
--- a/tests/test-gendoc
+++ b/tests/test-gendoc
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
-"$TESTDIR/hghave" rst2html || exit 80
-RST2HTML=`which rst2html 2> /dev/null || which rst2html.py`
+"$TESTDIR/hghave" docutils || exit 80
 
 HGENCODING=UTF-8
 export HGENCODING
@@ -14,8 +13,8 @@ for PO in C $TESTDIR/../i18n/*.po; do
     echo "" >> gendoc-$LOCALE.txt
     LC_ALL=$LOCALE python $TESTDIR/../doc/gendoc.py >> gendoc-$LOCALE.txt || exit
 
-    # We run rst2html over the file without adding "--halt warning" to
-    # make it report all errors instead of stopping on the first one.
-    echo "checking for parse errors with rst2html"
-    $RST2HTML gendoc-$LOCALE.txt /dev/null
+    # We call runrst without adding "--halt warning" to make it report
+    # all errors instead of stopping on the first one.
+    echo "checking for parse errors"
+    python $TESTDIR/../doc/runrst html gendoc-$LOCALE.txt /dev/null
 done
diff --git a/tests/test-gendoc.out b/tests/test-gendoc.out
--- a/tests/test-gendoc.out
+++ b/tests/test-gendoc.out
@@ -1,33 +1,33 @@
 
 % extracting documentation from C
-checking for parse errors with rst2html
+checking for parse errors
 
 % extracting documentation from da
-checking for parse errors with rst2html
+checking for parse errors
 
 % extracting documentation from de
-checking for parse errors with rst2html
+checking for parse errors
 
 % extracting documentation from el
-checking for parse errors with rst2html
+checking for parse errors
 
 % extracting documentation from fr
-checking for parse errors with rst2html
+checking for parse errors
 
 % extracting documentation from it
-checking for parse errors with rst2html
+checking for parse errors
 
 % extracting documentation from ja
-checking for parse errors with rst2html
+checking for parse errors
 
 % extracting documentation from pt_BR
-checking for parse errors with rst2html
+checking for parse errors
 
 % extracting documentation from sv
-checking for parse errors with rst2html
+checking for parse errors
 
 % extracting documentation from zh_CN
-checking for parse errors with rst2html
+checking for parse errors
 
 % extracting documentation from zh_TW
-checking for parse errors with rst2html
+checking for parse errors