diff --git a/configure.in b/configure.in
index 926dc8e15e560facd0fb5b7fd40395f077c2c3af..ade2b0b3d8f8c81ab92fa01e1da7835d4825b93d 100644
--- a/configure.in
+++ b/configure.in
@@ -107,18 +107,14 @@ AC_SUBST(MODULE_LIBS)
 AC_SUBST(dovecot_incdir)
 AC_SUBST(moduledir)
 
-if test "$docdir" = ""; then
-  dnl docdir supported only by autoconf v2.59c and later
-  docdir='${datadir}/doc/dovecot'
-fi
-AC_SUBST(docdir)
-
 dovecot_pkglibexecdir='$(libexecdir)/dovecot'
 dovecot_pkglibdir='$(libdir)/dovecot'
 dovecot_pkgincludedir='$(includedir)/dovecot'
+dovecot_docdir='$(datadir)/dovecot'
 AC_SUBST(dovecot_pkglibexecdir)
 AC_SUBST(dovecot_pkglibdir)
 AC_SUBST(dovecot_pkgincludedir)
+AC_SUBST(dovecot_docdir)
 
 AC_CONFIG_FILES([
 Makefile
diff --git a/doc/example-config/conf.d/Makefile.am b/doc/example-config/conf.d/Makefile.am
index 175992957b0f0e05f30b6a59555a7bd2569568e9..ba150224647653e81408790d9236d221877316d3 100644
--- a/doc/example-config/conf.d/Makefile.am
+++ b/doc/example-config/conf.d/Makefile.am
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 pkgsysconfdir = $(sysconfdir)/dovecot
 
-exampledir = $(docdir)/example-config/conf.d
+exampledir = $(dovecot_docdir)/example-config/conf.d
 example_DATA = \
 	sieve.conf