diff --git a/docs/README.md b/docs/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..ecf3042cd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+The Glow documentation is published with [Read the Docs](https://readthedocs.org/).
+
+To build the docs locally, activate the dev conda environment in `python/environment.yml` and then
+run `make livehtml` from this directory.
diff --git a/docs/source/conf.py b/docs/source/conf.py
index e4bdf4524..d2f4dfc5f 100644
--- a/docs/source/conf.py
+++ b/docs/source/conf.py
@@ -100,16 +100,7 @@
 # The theme to use for HTML and HTML Help pages.  See the documentation for
 # a list of builtin themes.
 #
-html_theme = 'alabaster'
-
-# Theme options are theme-specific and customize the look and feel of a theme
-# further.  For a list of options available for each theme, see the
-# documentation.
-#
-html_theme_options = {
-    'page_width': '85%',
-    'sidebar_width': '15%'
-}
+html_theme = 'sphinx_rtd_theme'
 
 # Add any paths that contain custom static files (such as style sheets) here,
 # relative to this directory. They are copied after the builtin static files,
diff --git a/python/environment.yml b/python/environment.yml
index 669afc851..1bdaaa7d1 100644
--- a/python/environment.yml
+++ b/python/environment.yml
@@ -8,3 +8,4 @@ dependencies:
     - setuptools==41.2.0 # Python packaging
     - typeguard==2.5.0
     - twine==2.0.0 # Pypi publishing
+    - sphinx_rtd_theme