diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 3dfb92c..3112c26 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -22,8 +22,7 @@ env:
         - PYTHON_VERSION=3.6
 
     matrix:
-        - SETUP_CMD='egg_info'
-          TEST_CMD='python --version'
+        - SETUP_CMD='egg_info' TEST_CMD='python --version'
 
 matrix:
     include:
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c0ca0b8..6df10ee 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -35,9 +35,15 @@ This does the following:
 - Set up Miniconda.
 - Set up the PATH appropriately.
 - Set up a conda environment named 'test' and switch to it.
-- Set the ``always_yes`` config option for conda to ``true`` so that you don't need to include ``--yes``.
-- Register the specified channels, or if not stated the ``astropy``, ``astropy-ci-extras``, and ``openastronomy`` channels.
+- Set the ``always_yes`` config option for conda to ``true`` so that you
+  don't need to include ``--yes``.
+- Register the specified channels.
 - ``export PYTHONIOENCODING=UTF8``
+- Supports custom skip tags included in the commit message that are not yet
+  natively provided by Travis. To skip the travis build: [skip travis] or
+  [travis skip]. To run only the docs build: [build docs] or [docs
+  only]. The latter requires ``SETUP_CMD`` (see below) to be set to
+  "build_docs" or "build_sphinx".
 
 Following this, various dependencies are installed depending on the following
 environment variables
@@ -53,7 +59,7 @@ environment variables
     * ``egg_info``: no dependencies are installed once the conda environment
       has been created and any other environment variables are ignored.
 
-    * ``build_sphinx`` or ``build_docs``: the Sphinx and matplotlib packages
+    * ``build_docs`` or ``build_sphinx``: the Sphinx and matplotlib packages
       are installed in addition to other packages that might be requested
       via other environment variables.
 
@@ -206,9 +212,10 @@ The scripts include:
 * ``appveyor/install-miniconda.ps1`` - set up conda on Windows
 * ``appveyor/windows_sdk.cmd`` - set up the compiler environment on Windows
 * ``travis/setup_dependencies_common.sh`` - set up conda packages on Linux and MacOS X
+* ``travis/setup_conda.sh`` - set up conda on MacOS X or Linux, users should use this directly rather than the OS specific ones below
 * ``travis/setup_conda_linux.sh`` - set up conda on Linux
 * ``travis/setup_conda_osx.sh`` - set up conda on MacOS X
-* ``travis/setup_conda.sh`` - set up conda on MacOS X or Linux
+
 
 This repository can be cloned directly from the ``.travis.yml`` and
 ``appveyor.yml`` files when about to run tests and does not need to be
diff --git a/travis/setup_conda.sh b/travis/setup_conda.sh
index 4027f03..4b6dac6 100755
--- a/travis/setup_conda.sh
+++ b/travis/setup_conda.sh
@@ -7,10 +7,39 @@
 #
 # The present script was added later.
 
+if [[ $DEBUG == True ]]; then
+    set -x
+fi
+
+# First check: if the build should be run at all based on the event type
+
+if [[ ! -z $EVENT_TYPE ]]; then
+    for event in $EVENT_TYPE; do
+        if [[ $TRAVIS_EVENT_TYPE = $event ]]; then
+            allow_to_build=True
+        fi
+    done
+    if [[ $allow_to_build != True ]]; then
+        travis_terminate 0
+    fi
+fi
+
+# Second check: if any of the custom tags are used to skip the build
+
+TR_SKIP="\[(skip travis|travis skip)\]"
+DOCS_ONLY="\[docs only|build docs\]"
+
 # Skip build if the commit message contains [skip travis] or [travis skip]
 # Remove workaround once travis has this feature natively
 # https://github.com/travis-ci/travis-ci/issues/5032
-echo "$TRAVIS_COMMIT_MESSAGE" | grep -E  '\[(skip travis|travis skip)\]' \
-    && echo "[skip travis] has been found, exiting." && exit 0
+if [[ ! -z $(echo $TRAVIS_COMMIT_MESSAGE | grep -E "$TR_SKIP") ]]; then
+    echo "Travis was requested to be skipped by the commit message, exiting."
+    travis_terminate 0
+elif [[ ! -z $(echo $TRAVIS_COMMIT_MESSAGE | grep -E "$DOCS_ONLY") ]]; then
+    if [[ $SETUP_CMD != *build_docs* ]] && [[ $SETUP_CMD != *build_sphinx* ]]; then
+        echo "Only docs build was requested by the commit message, exiting."
+        travis_terminate 0
+    fi
+fi
 
 source ci-helpers/travis/setup_conda_$TRAVIS_OS_NAME.sh;
diff --git a/travis/setup_dependencies_common.sh b/travis/setup_dependencies_common.sh
index 84022a2..24fa9a4 100755
--- a/travis/setup_dependencies_common.sh
+++ b/travis/setup_dependencies_common.sh
@@ -4,17 +4,6 @@ hash -r
 
 set -e
 
-if [[ ! -z $EVENT_TYPE ]]; then
-    for event in $EVENT_TYPE; do
-        if [[ $TRAVIS_EVENT_TYPE = $event ]]; then
-            allow_to_build=True
-        fi
-    done
-    if [[ $allow_to_build != True ]]; then
-        travis_terminate 0
-    fi
-fi
-
 # We need to do this before updating conda, as $CONDA_CHANNELS may be a
 # conda environment variable for some Miniconda versions, too that needs to
 # be space separated.
@@ -255,7 +244,7 @@ fi
 
 # DOCUMENTATION DEPENDENCIES
 # build_sphinx needs sphinx and matplotlib (for plot_directive).
-if [[ $SETUP_CMD == build_sphinx* ]] || [[ $SETUP_CMD == build_docs* ]]; then
+if [[ $SETUP_CMD == *build_sphinx* ]] || [[ $SETUP_CMD == *build_docs* ]]; then
     # Check whether there are any version setting env variables, pin them if
     # there are (only need to deal with the case when they aren't listed in
     # CONDA_DEPENDENCIES, otherwise this was already dealt with)
@@ -428,7 +417,7 @@ fi
 # cache before starting the tests/docs build. See details in
 # https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/5836
 
-if [[ $SETUP_CMD == build_sphinx* ]] || [[ $SETUP_CMD == build_docs* ]]; then
+if [[ $SETUP_CMD == *build_sphinx* ]] || [[ $SETUP_CMD == *build_docs* ]]; then
     python -c "import matplotlib.pyplot"
 fi