diff --git a/Doc/Makefile b/Doc/Makefile
index 8e70b21bec72e1..7f3e216c70e8fd 100644
--- a/Doc/Makefile
+++ b/Doc/Makefile
@@ -5,8 +5,9 @@
 
 # You can set these variables from the command line.
 PYTHON       = python3
-SPHINXBUILD  = sphinx-build
-BLURB = $(PYTHON) -m blurb
+VENVDIR      = ./venv
+SPHINXBUILD  = PATH=$(VENVDIR)/bin:$$PATH sphinx-build
+BLURB        = PATH=$(VENVDIR)/bin:$$PATH blurb
 PAPER        =
 SOURCES      =
 DISTVERSION  = $(shell $(PYTHON) tools/extensions/patchlevel.py)
@@ -118,11 +119,12 @@ htmlview: html
 	 $(PYTHON) -c "import webbrowser; webbrowser.open('build/html/index.html')"
 
 clean:
-	-rm -rf build/* venv/*
+	-rm -rf build/* $(VENVDIR)/*
 
 venv:
-	$(PYTHON) -m venv venv
-	./venv/bin/python3 -m pip install -U Sphinx
+	$(PYTHON) -m venv $(VENVDIR)
+	$(VENVDIR)/bin/python3 -m pip install -U Sphinx blurb
+	@echo "The venv has been created in the $(VENVDIR) directory"
 
 dist:
 	rm -rf dist
@@ -168,7 +170,7 @@ dist:
 	cp -pPR build/epub/Python.epub dist/python-$(DISTVERSION)-docs.epub
 
 check:
-	$(PYTHON) tools/rstlint.py -i tools -i venv -i README.rst
+	$(PYTHON) tools/rstlint.py -i tools -i $(VENVDIR) -i README.rst
 
 serve:
 	../Tools/scripts/serve.py build/html
diff --git a/Doc/conf.py b/Doc/conf.py
index f803de238e7ca9..f606a2c52b5a7a 100644
--- a/Doc/conf.py
+++ b/Doc/conf.py
@@ -36,6 +36,10 @@
 # Require Sphinx 1.2 for build.
 needs_sphinx = '1.2'
 
+# Ignore any .rst files in the venv/ directory.
+venvdir = os.getenv('VENVDIR', 'venv')
+exclude_patterns = [venvdir+'/*', 'README.rst']
+
 
 # Options for HTML output
 # -----------------------