diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index de25253df82ed4..8f3a2d133b5e35 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -16,10 +16,10 @@
 *.profraw
 *.dyn
 Doc/build/
-Doc/tools/docutils/
-Doc/tools/jinja2/
-Doc/tools/pygments/
-Doc/tools/sphinx/
+Doc/venv/
+Doc/.venv/
+Doc/env/
+Doc/.env/
 Lib/lib2to3/*.pickle
 Lib/test/data/*
 Makefile
diff --git a/Doc/Makefile b/Doc/Makefile
index 7ca4c7a2dbf7c3..3d7e4ac2bedcee 100644
--- a/Doc/Makefile
+++ b/Doc/Makefile
@@ -5,7 +5,9 @@
 
 # You can set these variables from the command line.
 PYTHON       = python
-SPHINXBUILD  = sphinx-build
+VENVDIR      = ./venv
+SPHINXBUILD  = PATH=$(VENVDIR)/bin:$$PATH sphinx-build
+BLURB        = PATH=$(VENVDIR)/bin:$$PATH blurb
 PAPER        =
 SOURCES      =
 DISTVERSION  = $(shell $(PYTHON) tools/extensions/patchlevel.py)
@@ -102,7 +104,12 @@ htmlview: html
 	 $(PYTHON) -c "import webbrowser; webbrowser.open('build/html/index.html')"
 
 clean:
-	-rm -rf build/*
+	-rm -rf build/* $(VENVDIR)/*
+
+venv:
+	$(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
@@ -148,7 +155,7 @@ dist:
 	cp -pPR build/epub/Python.epub dist/python-$(DISTVERSION)-docs.epub
 
 check:
-	$(PYTHON)2 tools/rstlint.py -i tools
+	$(PYTHON)2 tools/rstlint.py -i tools -i $(VENVDIR)
 
 serve:
 	../Tools/scripts/serve.py build/html