diff --git a/src/Makefile.am b/src/Makefile.am
index 1b3db17..b8de961 100644
--- a/src/Makefile.am
+++ b/src/Makefile.am
@@ -7,3 +7,8 @@ apidox:
 	doxygen Doxyfile
 
 EXTRA_DIST = libiff.pc.in
+
+# When calling help2man, we need to make sure that the output is
+# redirected to stdout, not stderr.  This is because the output of
+# iffjoin --help is redirected to stderr
+HELP2MAN = @HELP2MAN@ --no-discard-stderr --version-string=$(VERSION)