diff --git a/INSTALL.md b/INSTALL.md
index a85ad87..33143d3 100644
--- a/INSTALL.md
+++ b/INSTALL.md
@@ -71,9 +71,15 @@ The steps in building Stow are:
 
     to avoid a superfluous `use lib` line in your stow executable.
 
-3.  Type `perl Build.PL`.
+3.  If you have LaTeX and texinfo installed and want to build a PDF
+    version of the manual, type:
 
-4.  Type `./Build install` to install the various files.  As noted
+        make pdf
+
+4.  Type `perl Build.PL`.  If you skipped step 3 and see a warning
+    about `manual.pdf` being missing, you can safely ignore it.
+
+5.  Type `./Build install` to install the various files.  As noted
     above, this installs fewer files than the Autotools installation.
 
 Basic Installation via Autotools
@@ -105,13 +111,10 @@ The steps in building Stow are:
     line into the generated stow script to ensure that it can always
     locate the Perl modules without needing to manually set `PERL5LIB`.
 
-4.  You can remove the generated files from the source code directory
-    by typing `make clean`.  To also remove the files that `configure`
-    created (so you can compile the package for a different computer),
-    type `make distclean`.  There is also a `make maintainer-clean`
-    target, but that is intended mainly for stow's developers.  If you
-    use it, you may have to get all sorts of other programs in order
-    to regenerate files that came with the distribution.
+4.  If you have LaTeX and texinfo installed and want to build a PDF
+    version of the manual, type:
+
+        make pdf
 
 Installation Names
 ------------------
@@ -193,6 +196,17 @@ operates.
 
 `configure` also accepts some other, not widely useful, options.
 
+Cleaning up build files
+-----------------------
+
+You can remove the generated files from the source code directory by
+typing `make clean`.  To also remove the files that `configure`
+created (so you can compile the package for a different computer),
+type `make distclean`.  There is also a `make maintainer-clean`
+target, but that is intended mainly for stow's developers.  If you use
+it, you may have to get all sorts of other programs in order to
+regenerate files that came with the distribution.
+
 License for this file
 ---------------------
 
diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index 96eedb1..75d9be9 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ PDF = doc/manual.pdf
 HTML = doc/manual-single.html
 dist_doc_DATA = \
 	README.md INSTALL.md \
-	$(PDF) $(HTML) doc/version.texi \
+	$(HTML) doc/version.texi \
 	ChangeLog doc/ChangeLog.OLD
 
 # automake magic to define where *_DATA files get installed:
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ $(TESTS_OUT):
 CPAN_FILES = MANIFEST MANIFEST.SKIP Build.PL META.yml META.json
 EXTRA_DIST = \
 	bin/stow.in bin/chkstow.in lib/Stow.pm.in lib/Stow/Util.pm.in \
-	doc/manual-split \
+	$(PDF) doc/manual-split \
 	$(TESTS) t/testutil.pm \
 	$(DEFAULT_IGNORE_LIST) \
 	$(CPAN_FILES)
@@ -237,6 +237,8 @@ $(HTML): $(doc_deps)
 		-c USE_TITLEPAGE_FOR_TITLE=1 --no-split -o $@ \
 		`test -f 'doc/stow.texi' || echo '$(srcdir)/'`doc/stow.texi
 
+pdf: $(PDF)
+
 $(PDF): $(doc_deps)
 	TEXINPUTS="$(am__TEXINFO_TEX_DIR)$(PATH_SEPARATOR)$$TEXINPUTS" \
 	MAKEINFO='$(MAKEINFO) $(AM_MAKEINFOFLAGS) $(MAKEINFOFLAGS) -I doc -I $(srcdir)/doc' \
diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 84148de..4706fe7 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -19,6 +19,15 @@ News file for Stow.
     --target="$HOME/dir with space in/file with space in"
     --ignore=\\$FOO\\$
 
+*** Make dependency on LaTeX optional
+
+    Previously, the installation instructions always built a PDF
+    version of the manual, which required having LaTeX installed.
+    However LaTeX is a large program which can be awkward to install,
+    so this has now been made optional, and by default the PDF manual
+    is not part of the build.  It can still be built via =make pdf=,
+    and this is documented.
+
 *** Fix Docker builds.
 
     Fix the return error 100 that was happening when trying to run
diff --git a/aclocal.m4 b/aclocal.m4
index 6d04fca..53cbb40 100644
--- a/aclocal.m4
+++ b/aclocal.m4
@@ -14,8 +14,8 @@
 m4_ifndef([AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS], [m4_defun([_AM_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS], [])m4_defun([AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS], [_AM_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS($@)])])
 m4_ifndef([AC_AUTOCONF_VERSION],
   [m4_copy([m4_PACKAGE_VERSION], [AC_AUTOCONF_VERSION])])dnl
-m4_if(m4_defn([AC_AUTOCONF_VERSION]), [2.71],,
-[m4_warning([this file was generated for autoconf 2.71.
+m4_if(m4_defn([AC_AUTOCONF_VERSION]), [2.72],,
+[m4_warning([this file was generated for autoconf 2.72.
 You have another version of autoconf.  It may work, but is not guaranteed to.
 If you have problems, you may need to regenerate the build system entirely.
 To do so, use the procedure documented by the package, typically 'autoreconf'.])])
diff --git a/doc/HOWTO-RELEASE b/doc/HOWTO-RELEASE
index d810582..d27baea 100644
--- a/doc/HOWTO-RELEASE
+++ b/doc/HOWTO-RELEASE
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ Release procedure
         eval `perl -V:siteprefix`
         automake --add-missing
         ./configure --prefix=$siteprefix && make
+        make pdf
 
       (N.B. the CPAN distribution will contain these files, whereas
       the GNU distribution will not.)