Minor cleanup of windows build script and venv configuration

.gitattributes

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto !eol
+*.sh         eol=lf
+*.bat        eol=crlf

.gitignore

@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ dist/*
 
 build/*
 doc/build/
+.vscode/
 
 # virtual environment
 venv/

README.rst

@@ -18,13 +18,20 @@ A PDF version of this guide can be found in the release notes in `Releases
 
 Generate Documentation
 ----------------------
-To generate this documentation locally, first install the
-requirements with:
+To generate this documentation locally, you can install the requirements into
+your Python environment with:
 
 .. code::
 
    pip install -r requirements_docs.txt
 
+or if you want to configure and activate a Python virtual environment with the
+required packages:
+
+.. code::
+
+   configure_venv
+
 Then, depending on your operating system, generate the documentation.
 
 On Windows, generate with:

configure_venv.bat

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+@echo off
+setlocal
+
+python -m venv venv
+pip install -r requirements_docs.txt
+pip install -r requirements_style.txt
+venv\Scripts\activate.bat

configure_venv.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+python -m venv venv
+pip install -r requirements_docs.txt
+pip install -r requirements_style.txt
+venv/activate

doc/make.bat

@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-@ECHO OFF
+@echo off
+setlocal
 
 pushd %~dp0