diff --git a/api/Makefile.am b/api/Makefile.am
index 98b8e9e98..2bd668285 100644
--- a/api/Makefile.am
+++ b/api/Makefile.am
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ libtesseract_api.o: baseapi.o \
     ../ccutil/libtesseract_ccutil.a
 
 libtesseract_api.a : libtesseract_api.o
-	ar cru libtesseract_api.a libtesseract_api.o ; ranlib libtesseract_api.a
+	ar cru libtesseract_api.a libtesseract_api.o ; $(RANLIB) libtesseract_api.a
 
 bin_PROGRAMS = tesseract
 tesseract_SOURCES = tesseractmain.cpp
diff --git a/api/Makefile.in b/api/Makefile.in
index b38338200..364b55480 100644
--- a/api/Makefile.in
+++ b/api/Makefile.in
@@ -650,7 +650,7 @@ libtesseract_api.o: baseapi.o \
     ../ccutil/libtesseract_ccutil.a
 
 libtesseract_api.a : libtesseract_api.o
-	ar cru libtesseract_api.a libtesseract_api.o ; ranlib libtesseract_api.a
+	ar cru libtesseract_api.a libtesseract_api.o ; $(RANLIB) libtesseract_api.a
 # Tell versions [3.59,3.63) of GNU make to not export all variables.
 # Otherwise a system limit (for SysV at least) may be exceeded.
 .NOEXPORT: