diff --git a/changes/bug6436 b/changes/bug6436
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..2c163df105f3f6f5ad4e46d79e0334f276cfb06d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changes/bug6436
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+  o Minor features:
+    - Provide a better error message about possible OSX Asciidoc failure
+      reasons. Fix for bug 6436.
diff --git a/doc/asciidoc-helper.sh b/doc/asciidoc-helper.sh
index 33e1360a71c035e891ab96c99bcf1cf07d3eeb60..dd420f7c4f6fe4145f97087eeed55ee1a683384e 100755
--- a/doc/asciidoc-helper.sh
+++ b/doc/asciidoc-helper.sh
@@ -54,7 +54,9 @@ You need a working asciidoc installed to be able to build the manpage.
 a2x is installed, but for some reason it isn't working.  Sometimes
 This happens because required docbook support files are missing.
 Please install docbook-xsl, docbook-xml, and libxml2-utils (Debian) or
-similar.
+similar. If you use homebrew on Mac OS X, install the docbook formula
+and add "export XML_CATALOG_FILES=/usr/local/etc/xml/catalog" to your
+.bashrc
 
 Alternatively, to build without manpages, use the --disable-asciidoc
 argument when calling configure.