diff --git a/docs/Makefile.am b/docs/Makefile.am
index c6a3eadc95..9de3406d87 100644
--- a/docs/Makefile.am
+++ b/docs/Makefile.am
@@ -242,6 +242,7 @@ internals/%.html.tmp: internals/%.html.in subsite.xsl page.xsl sitemap.html.in
 html/index.html: libvirt-api.xml newapi.xsl page.xsl sitemap.html.in
 	$(AM_V_GEN)if [ -x $(XSLTPROC) ] ; then \
 	  $(XSLTPROC) --nonet -o $(srcdir)/ \
+	  --stringparam builddir '$(abs_top_builddir)' \
 	  $(srcdir)/newapi.xsl $(srcdir)/libvirt-api.xml ; fi && \
 	if test -x $(XMLLINT) && test -x $(XMLCATALOG) ; then \
 	  if $(XMLCATALOG) '$(XML_CATALOG_FILE)' "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" \
diff --git a/docs/newapi.xsl b/docs/newapi.xsl
index 606d24436b..7fa0f26889 100644
--- a/docs/newapi.xsl
+++ b/docs/newapi.xsl
@@ -25,18 +25,20 @@
   <!-- Build keys for all symbols -->
   <xsl:key name="symbols" match="/api/symbols/*" use="@name"/>
 
+  <xsl:param name="builddir" select="'..'"/>
+
   <!-- the target directory for the HTML output -->
   <xsl:variable name="htmldir">html</xsl:variable>
   <xsl:variable name="href_base">../</xsl:variable>
 
   <xsl:variable name="acls">
-    <xsl:copy-of select="document('../src/libvirt_access.xml')/aclinfo/api"/>
+    <xsl:copy-of select="document('{$builddir}/src/libvirt_access.xml')/aclinfo/api"/>
   </xsl:variable>
   <xsl:variable name="qemuacls">
-    <xsl:copy-of select="document('../src/libvirt_access_qemu.xml')/aclinfo/api"/>
+    <xsl:copy-of select="document('{$builddir}/src/libvirt_access_qemu.xml')/aclinfo/api"/>
   </xsl:variable>
   <xsl:variable name="lxcacls">
-    <xsl:copy-of select="document('../src/libvirt_access_lxc.xml')/aclinfo/api"/>
+    <xsl:copy-of select="document('{$builddir}/src/libvirt_access_lxc.xml')/aclinfo/api"/>
   </xsl:variable>
 
   <xsl:template name="aclinfo">