diff --git a/misc/autodoc/markup.py b/misc/autodoc/markup.py
index a89d2b853e..43ba1d0c4a 100644
--- a/misc/autodoc/markup.py
+++ b/misc/autodoc/markup.py
@@ -1,6 +1,9 @@
 import logging
 
-import txt2tags
+try:
+    import txt2tags
+except ImportError:
+    raise SystemExit("txt2tags is not installed. Please install it with 'pip install -r requirements.txt', preferably in a virtual environment.")
 
 
 def _get_config(target):