diff --git a/doc/Makefile b/doc/Makefile
index 4dbed024f7..82c099ff70 100644
--- a/doc/Makefile
+++ b/doc/Makefile
@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@
 SHELL         = /bin/bash
 BUILDDIR      = ${CURDIR}
 RSTDIR        = $(BUILDDIR)/src
-TXTDIR        = $(BUILDDIR)/txt
 VENV          = $(BUILDDIR)/docenv
 TXT2RST       = $(VENV)/bin/txt2rst
 ANCHORCHECK   = $(VENV)/bin/rst_anchor_check
@@ -28,8 +27,6 @@ HAS_VIRTUALENV = YES
 endif
 
 SPHINXEXTRA = -j $(shell $(PYTHON) -c 'import multiprocessing;print(multiprocessing.cpu_count())')
-SOURCES=$(filter-out $(wildcard $(TXTDIR)/lammps_commands*.txt) $(TXTDIR)/lammps_support.txt $(TXTDIR)/lammps_tutorials.txt,$(wildcard $(TXTDIR)/*.txt))
-OBJECTS=$(SOURCES:$(TXTDIR)/%.txt=$(RSTDIR)/%.rst)
 
 .PHONY: help clean-all clean epub mobi rst html pdf venv spelling anchor_check style_check
 
@@ -61,9 +58,9 @@ clean:
 clean-spelling:
 	rm -rf spelling
 
-rst: clean $(OBJECTS) $(ANCHORCHECK)
+rst: clean $(ANCHORCHECK)
 
-html: $(OBJECTS) $(ANCHORCHECK)
+html: $(ANCHORCHECK)
 	@(\
 		. $(VENV)/bin/activate ;\
 		sphinx-build $(SPHINXEXTRA) -b html -c utils/sphinx-config -d $(BUILDDIR)/doctrees $(RSTDIR) html ;\
@@ -86,7 +83,7 @@ html: $(OBJECTS) $(ANCHORCHECK)
 	@rm -rf html/USER/*/*.[sg]*
 	@echo "Build finished. The HTML pages are in doc/html."
 
-spelling: $(OBJECTS) utils/sphinx-config/false_positives.txt
+spelling: utils/sphinx-config/false_positives.txt
 	@(\
 		. $(VENV)/bin/activate ;\
 		pip install sphinxcontrib-spelling ;\
@@ -96,7 +93,7 @@ spelling: $(OBJECTS) utils/sphinx-config/false_positives.txt
 	)
 	@echo "Spell check finished."
 
-epub: $(OBJECTS)
+epub:
 	@mkdir -p epub/JPG
 	@rm -f LAMMPS.epub
 	@cp src/JPG/lammps-logo.png epub/
@@ -115,7 +112,7 @@ mobi: epub
 	@ebook-convert LAMMPS.epub LAMMPS.mobi
 	@echo "Conversion finished. The MOBI manual file is created."
 
-pdf: $(OBJECTS) $(ANCHORCHECK)
+pdf: $(ANCHORCHECK)
 	@(\
 		cd src/Developer; \
 		pdflatex developer; \
@@ -180,14 +177,6 @@ style_check :
 
 # ------------------------------------------
 
-$(RSTDIR)/%.rst : $(TXTDIR)/%.txt $(TXT2RST)
-	@(\
-		mkdir -p $(RSTDIR) ; \
-		. $(VENV)/bin/activate ;\
-		txt2rst -v $< > $@ ;\
-		deactivate ;\
-	)
-
 $(VENV):
 	@if [ "$(HAS_PYTHON3)" == "NO" ] ; then echo "Python3 was not found! Please check README.md for further instructions" 1>&2; exit 1; fi
 	@if [ "$(HAS_VIRTUALENV)" == "NO" ] ; then echo "virtualenv was not found! Please check README.md for further instructions" 1>&2; exit 1; fi