diff --git a/mkvmerge.1 b/mkvmerge.1
index 744ff8d1f..a4c4a6ea6 100644
--- a/mkvmerge.1
+++ b/mkvmerge.1
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 mkvmerge \- Merge multimedia streams into a Matroska file
 .SH SYNOPSIS
 .B mkvmerge
-[\fIglobal options\fR] \-o \fIout\fR [\fIoptions\fR] <file1> [[\fIoptions\fR] <file2> ...]
+[\fIglobal options\fR] \-o \fIout\fR [\fIoptions\fR] <file1> [[\fIoptions\fR] <file2> ...] [@optionsfile]
 .SH DESCRIPTION
 .LP
 This program takes the input from several media files and joins
@@ -98,6 +98,27 @@ Show usage information.
 .TP
 \fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
 Show version information.
+.TP
+\fB@\fR\fIoptionsfile\fR
+Reads additional command line arguments from the file \fIoptionsfile\fR.
+Lines whose first non-whitespace character is a hash mark (#) are treated
+as comments and ignored. Whitespaces at the start and end of a line will
+be stripped. If a space is encountered then the line will be split into
+exactly two arguments - the string before the space and the string after
+it. There is no meta character escaping.
+.br
+The command line \fBmkvmerge \-o "my file.mkv" -A "a movie.avi" sound.ogg\fR
+could be converted into the following option file:
+.br
+# Write to the file "my file.mkv".
+.br
+\-o my file.mkv
+.br
+# Only take the video from "a movie.avi".
+.br
+\-A a movie.avi
+.br
+sound.ogg
 .SH USAGE
 .LP
 For each file the user can select which tracks \fBmkvmerge\fR should take.
diff --git a/mkvmerge.cpp b/mkvmerge.cpp
index 4f194ee44..269c9260f 100644
--- a/mkvmerge.cpp
+++ b/mkvmerge.cpp
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 
 /*!
     \file
-    \version \$Id: mkvmerge.cpp,v 1.39 2003/04/20 14:59:33 mosu Exp $
+    \version \$Id: mkvmerge.cpp,v 1.40 2003/04/20 15:07:11 mosu Exp $
     \brief command line parameter parsing, looping, output handling
     \author Moritz Bunkus         <moritz @ bunkus.org>
 */
@@ -141,7 +141,7 @@ file_type_t file_types[] =
 
 static void usage(void) {
   fprintf(stdout,
-    "mkvmerge -o out [global options] [options] <file1> [[options] <file2> ...]"
+    "mkvmerge -o out [global options] [options] <file1> [@optionsfile ...]"
     "\n\n Global options:\n"
     "  -v, --verbose            verbose status\n"
     "  -q, --quiet              suppress status output\n"
@@ -177,6 +177,8 @@ static void usage(void) {
     "  -l, --list-types         Lists supported input file types.\n"
     "  -h, --help               Show this help.\n"
     "  -V, --version            Show version information.\n"
+    "  @optionsfile             Reads additional command line options from\n"
+    "                           the specified file (see man page).\n"
   );
 }