diff --git a/man/custom-html.xsl b/man/custom-html.xsl
index 98ec95303d7..45cd1f922d6 100644
--- a/man/custom-html.xsl
+++ b/man/custom-html.xsl
@@ -158,6 +158,8 @@
   <xsl:param name="keyNode"/>
   <!-- suggested value for generatedID output, a contextually meaningful ID string -->
   <xsl:param name="templateID"/>
+  <!-- Strip leading and trailing whitespaces, and replace repeating whitespaces with a single space -->
+  <xsl:variable name="normalizedID" select="normalize-space($templateID)"/>
   <xsl:variable name="conflictSource" select="preceding::refsect1/title|preceding::refsect1/info/title|
 					      preceding::refsect2/title|preceding::refsect2/info/title|
 					      preceding::varlistentry/term[1]"/>
@@ -165,10 +167,10 @@
   <xsl:choose>
     <!-- special case conflictCount = 0 to preserve compatibility with URLs generated by previous versions of this XSL stylesheet where possible -->
     <xsl:when test="$conflictCount = 0">
-      <xsl:value-of select="$templateID"/>
+      <xsl:value-of select="$normalizedID"/>
     </xsl:when>
     <xsl:otherwise>
-      <xsl:value-of select="concat($templateID, $conflictCount)"/>
+      <xsl:value-of select="concat($normalizedID, $conflictCount)"/>
     </xsl:otherwise>
   </xsl:choose>
 </xsl:template>