diff --git a/Mkfiles/msvc.mak b/Mkfiles/msvc.mak
index a718348d..8ddafdf0 100644
--- a/Mkfiles/msvc.mak
+++ b/Mkfiles/msvc.mak
@@ -344,7 +344,8 @@ strip:
 
 # Abuse doc/Makefile.in to build nasmdoc.pdf only
 docs:
-	cd doc && $(MAKE) /f Makefile.in srcdir=. top_srcdir=.. PERL=$(PERL) nasmdoc.pdf
+	cd doc && $(MAKE) /f Makefile.in srcdir=. top_srcdir=.. \
+		PERL=$(PERL) PDFOPT= nasmdoc.pdf
 
 everything: all docs nsis
 
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index a426c727..c5b317e2 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -149,6 +149,14 @@ AC_CHECK_DECLS(strnlen)
 dnl Check for missing types
 AC_TYPE_UINTPTR_T
 
+dnl Documentation: should we generate an uncompressed PDF?  It is
+dnl about twice as big, but it can be externally compressed (e.g. with xz)
+dnl and becomes significantly smaller than the original.
+PA_ARG_DISABLED([pdf-compression],
+  [generate an uncompressed documentation PDF],
+  [PDFOPT='-nocompress'])
+AC_SUBST([PDFOPT])
+
 dnl
 dnl Check for supported gcc attributes; some compilers (e.g. Sun CC)
 dnl support these, but don't define __GNUC__ as they don't support
diff --git a/doc/Makefile.in b/doc/Makefile.in
index 0e142d37..6a2d5a7e 100644
--- a/doc/Makefile.in
+++ b/doc/Makefile.in
@@ -23,15 +23,13 @@ TEXI2DVI        = texi2dvi
 TEXI2IPF	= texi2ipf
 IPFC		= ipfc
 
-ACRODIST	= acrodist		# Acrobat Distiller
-PSTOPDF		= pstopdf		# BSD/MacOS X utility
-PS2PDF          = ps2pdf		# Part of GhostScript
+PDFOPT		= @PDFOPT@
 
 RM_F		= rm -f
 RM_RF		= rm -rf
 
 SRCS		= nasmdoc.src inslist.src changes.src version.src
-OUT		= info html nasmdoc.txt nasmdoc.ps nasmdoc.pdf
+OUT		= info html nasmdoc.txt nasmdoc.pdf
 
 .SUFFIXES: .pfa .ph
 
@@ -68,8 +66,8 @@ nasmdoc.ps: nasmdoc.dip genps.pl afmmetrics.ph ttfmetrics.ph \
 	$(PERL) $(srcdir)/genps.pl -headps $(srcdir)/head.ps nasmdoc.dip \
 		> nasmdoc.ps
 
-nasmdoc.pdf: nasmdoc.ps
-	$(PERL) pspdf.pl nasmdoc.ps nasmdoc.pdf
+nasmdoc.pdf: nasmdoc.ps pspdf.pl
+	$(PERL) pspdf.pl $(PDFOPT) nasmdoc.ps nasmdoc.pdf
 
 .PHONY: info
 info: info/nasm.info
diff --git a/doc/pspdf.pl b/doc/pspdf.pl
index 454c031c..961a8ae1 100755
--- a/doc/pspdf.pl
+++ b/doc/pspdf.pl
@@ -5,10 +5,21 @@
 
 use strict;
 
+my $compress = 1;
+
+while ($ARGV[0] =~ /^-(.*)$/) {
+    my $opt = $1;
+    shift @ARGV;
+
+    if ($opt eq '-nocompress') {
+	$compress = 0;
+    }
+}
+
 my ($in, $out) = @ARGV;
 
 if (!defined($out)) {
-	die "Usage: $0 infile outfile\n";
+	die "Usage: $0 [-nocompress] infile outfile\n";
 }
 
 # Remove output file
@@ -20,8 +31,8 @@ exit 0 if ( !$r && -f $out );
 
 # 2. ps2pdf (from Ghostscript)
 my $r = system('ps2pdf', '-dOptimize=true', '-dEmbedAllFonts=true',
-	       '-dUseFlateCompression=true',
-	       $in, $out);
+	       '-dCompressPages=' . ($compress ? 'true' : 'false'),
+	       '-dUseFlateCompression=true', $in, $out);
 exit 0 if ( !$r && -f $out );
 
 # 3. pstopdf (BSD/MacOS X utility)
diff --git a/nasm.spec.in b/nasm.spec.in
index 10d5a3f3..9cdb3001 100644
--- a/nasm.spec.in
+++ b/nasm.spec.in
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ include linker, library manager, loader, and information dump.
 %setup -q -n nasm-%{nasm_version}
 
 %build
-%configure
+%configure --disable-pdf-compression
 make %{?_smp_mflags} everything
 
 %install