diff --git a/doc/guide/admin/preface.sdf b/doc/guide/admin/preface.sdf
index f28915ebe4..7335a6ee35 100644
--- a/doc/guide/admin/preface.sdf
+++ b/doc/guide/admin/preface.sdf
@@ -48,6 +48,13 @@ Software Pages|http://www.OpenLDAP.org/software/
 Support Pages|http://www.OpenLDAP.org/support/
 !endblock
  
+This document is not a complete reference for OpenLDAP software; the
+manual pages are the definitive documentation. For best results,
+you should use the manual pages that were installed on your system
+with your version of OpenLDAP software so that you're looking at
+documentation that matches the code. While the OpenLDAP web site
+also provides the manual pages for convenience, you can not assume
+that they corresond to the particular version you're running.
 
 P2[notoc] Acknowledgments