--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+2012-01-23  Paul Eggert  <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
+
+	doc: omit trailing empty lines from INSTALL etc.
+	* doc/Makefile (INSTALL): Omit trailing empty lines.
+	(INSTALL.ISO, INSTALL.UTF-8): Build from INSTALL, so that these also
+	omit trailing empty lines.  This simplifies the build procedure.
+
 2012-01-23  Jim Meyering  <meyering@redhat.com>
 
 	tests: avoid spurious warnings about gl_sockets_startup

--- a/doc/Makefile
+++ b/doc/Makefile
@@ -37,25 +37,22 @@
 
 INSTALL_PRELUDE = echo '@firstparagraphindent insert'
 
+OMIT_TRAILING_EMPTY_LINES = /^$$/H; /^$$/d; x; s/\n//p; s/\n*//; x
+
 # INSTALL file with old ASCII quotation marks (looks ugly on modern machines).
 INSTALL: install.texi
 	$(INSTALL_PRELUDE) | cat - $< > tmp.texi
-	$(MAKEINFO) --plaintext --no-validate tmp.texi > $@
+	$(MAKEINFO) --plaintext --no-validate tmp.texi \
+	  | sed -e '$(OMIT_TRAILING_EMPTY_LINES)' > $@
 	rm -f tmp.texi
 
 # INSTALL file with ISO 646 or ISO 8859 quotation marks.
-INSTALL.ISO: install.texi
-	$(INSTALL_PRELUDE) | cat - $< > tmpi.texi
-	$(MAKEINFO) --plaintext --no-validate tmpi.texi \
-	  | sed -e "s/\`\([^']*\)'/'\1'/g" > $@
-	rm -f tmpi.texi
+INSTALL.ISO: INSTALL
+	sed -e "s/\`\([^']*\)'/'\1'/g" $< > $@
 
-# INSTALL file wit ISO 10646 (Unicode) quotation marks.
-INSTALL.UTF-8: install.texi
-	$(INSTALL_PRELUDE) | cat - $< > tmpu.texi
-	$(MAKEINFO) --plaintext --no-validate tmpu.texi \
-	  | sed -e "s/\`\([^']*\)'/‘\1’/g" > $@
-	rm -f tmpu.texi
+# INSTALL file with ISO 10646 (Unicode) quotation marks.
+INSTALL.UTF-8: INSTALL
+	sed -e "s/\`\([^']*\)'/‘\1’/g" $< > $@
 
 GNULIB_TEXI_FILES = $(filter-out maintain.texi make-stds.texi standards.texi,$(wildcard *.texi)) $(wildcard posix-headers/*.texi) $(wildcard posix-functions/*.texi) $(wildcard glibc-headers/*.texi) $(wildcard glibc-functions/*.texi)