diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index af832c89924d..e30ea14bf2fa 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -56,6 +56,7 @@ jobs:
         script:
         - 'if [ "$TRAVIS_PULL_REQUEST" = "false" ]; then (cd admin && ./init.sh); fi'
         - bundle exec jekyll build -s spec/ -d build/spec
+        - ./scripts/generate-spec-pdf.sh
         after_success:
         - 'if [ "$TRAVIS_PULL_REQUEST" = "false" ]; then ./scripts/travis-publish-spec.sh; fi'
 
diff --git a/scripts/generate-spec-pdf.sh b/scripts/generate-spec-pdf.sh
old mode 100644
new mode 100755
index 38f94ac1b24f..d69a35e0982a
--- a/scripts/generate-spec-pdf.sh
+++ b/scripts/generate-spec-pdf.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 
+set -e
+set -v
+
 # NOTES:
 # "toc"                     -> treated just like another page, its location can be changed
 # "--window-status loaded"  -> when window.status is set to "loaded", wkhtmltopdf knows js is loaded
@@ -8,15 +11,27 @@ THIS_SCRIPT_DIR=$(dirname $0)
 ROOT_DIR=$THIS_SCRIPT_DIR/..
 SPEC_SRC_DIR=$ROOT_DIR/spec
 SPEC_BUILD_DIR=$ROOT_DIR/build/spec
+PDF=$SPEC_BUILD_DIR/spec.pdf
+
+mkdir -p $SPEC_BUILD_DIR
 
-WKHTML_OPTS='--print-media-type --window-status loaded --footer-center [page] --javascript-delay 1000 --footer-font-name "Luxi Sans"'
+WKHTML_OPTS='--print-media-type --window-status loaded --footer-center [page] --javascript-delay 1000 --footer-font-name "Luxi Sans" --load-error-handling ignore'
 WKHTML_TOC="toc --xsl-style-sheet $SPEC_SRC_DIR/spec-toc.xslt"
 
 # exclude index.html, prepend SPEC_BUILD_DIR path
-HTML_FILES=$(ls $SPEC_BUILD_DIR -I 'index.html' | grep '\.html$' | while read line; do echo "$SPEC_BUILD_DIR/$line"; done)
+HTML_FILES=$(ls $SPEC_BUILD_DIR | grep -vx 'index.html' | grep '\.html$' | while read line; do echo "$SPEC_BUILD_DIR/$line"; done)
 
-echo "Making Spec.pdf with HTML files: "
+echo "Making spec.pdf with HTML files: "
 echo $SPEC_BUILD_DIR/index.html $HTML_FILES
 
 # first goes index.html, then TOC, then rest
-wkhtmltopdf $WKHTML_OPTS $SPEC_BUILD_DIR/index.html $WKHTML_TOC $HTML_FILES $SPEC_BUILD_DIR/Spec.pdf
\ No newline at end of file
+rm -f $PDF
+wkhtmltopdf $WKHTML_OPTS $SPEC_BUILD_DIR/index.html $WKHTML_TOC $HTML_FILES $PDF || true
+
+# the '|| true' thing is because we get:
+#   Error: Failed to load http:/, with network status code 3 and http status code 0 - Host  not found
+#   Warning: Failed loading page http: (ignored)
+# as long we have `--load-error-handling ignore` we still get a PDF, but we also get a nonzero exit code
+
+# fail if we didn't get a PDF file out
+if [ ! -f $PDF ] ; then exit 1 ; fi