diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 8106052db8..89e3da1b04 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -3,6 +3,9 @@ Sun Dec 14 00:06:00 CST 1997 Shawn T. Amundson <amundson@gimp.org>
 	* configure.in: Changed gimp lib dir to lib/gimp/MAJOR.MINOR 
           instead of lib/gimp/MAJOR.MINOR.MICRO
 	* script-fu/scripts: removed piechart, kanji-circle, kanji-neon 
+	* configure.in: change check for EMACS to allow emacs to not 
+          exist (in which case, no error results, but pdb docs don't
+          get made)
 
 Sat Dec 13 19:41:35 CST 1997 Shawn T. Amundson <amundson@gimp.org>
 	
diff --git a/configure.in b/configure.in
index 41f0c7c387..7a5ab00ff0 100644
--- a/configure.in
+++ b/configure.in
@@ -243,7 +243,7 @@ gimpdatadir=$datadir/$PACKAGE
 gimpplugindir=$libdir/$PACKAGE/$GIMP_MAJOR_VERSION_NUMBER.$GIMP_MINOR_VERSION_NUMBER
 
 dnl This is for generating PDB docuemntation.
-AC_PATH_PROG(EMACS, emacs)
+AC_PATH_PROG(EMACS, emacs, :)
 
 AC_SUBST(gimpdir)
 AC_SUBST(gimpdatadir)