diff --git a/doc/Makefile b/doc/Makefile
index 24ad42185f91..4bf33f7dd43b 100644
--- a/doc/Makefile
+++ b/doc/Makefile
@@ -8,10 +8,10 @@ debug:
 	nix-shell --run "xmloscopy --docbook5 ./manual.xml ./manual-full.xml"
 
 .PHONY: format
-format:
+format: doc-support/result
 	find . -iname '*.xml' -type f | while read f; do \
 		echo $$f ;\
-		xmlformat --config-file "$$XMLFORMAT_CONFIG" -i $$f ;\
+		xmlformat --config-file "doc-support/result/xmlformat.conf" -i $$f ;\
 	done
 
 .PHONY: fix-misc-xml
diff --git a/doc/default.nix b/doc/default.nix
index 7fed48c45e68..971c60b35c2a 100644
--- a/doc/default.nix
+++ b/doc/default.nix
@@ -13,7 +13,6 @@ in pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
   # nix-shell between each test, maybe even:
   # $ nix-shell --run "make clean all"
   # otherwise they won't reapply :)
-  XMLFORMAT_CONFIG = ../nixos/doc/xmlformat.conf;
   xsltFlags = lib.concatStringsSep " " [
     "--param section.autolabel 1"
     "--param section.label.includes.component.label 1"
diff --git a/doc/doc-support/default.nix b/doc/doc-support/default.nix
index ac9a6f52c830..c8be039fa7e0 100644
--- a/doc/doc-support/default.nix
+++ b/doc/doc-support/default.nix
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ in pkgs.runCommand "doc-support" {}
     ln -s ${pkgs.docbook5}/xml/rng/docbook/docbook.rng ./docbook.rng
     ln -s ${pkgs.docbook_xsl_ns}/xml/xsl ./xsl
 
+    ln -s ${../../nixos/doc/xmlformat.conf} ./xmlformat.conf
     ln -s ${pkgs.documentation-highlighter} ./highlightjs
 
     echo -n "${version}" > ./version