Rely on the style sheet more for the distutils markup.

Doc/html/style.css

@@ -150,6 +150,19 @@ div.note .label         { margin-right: 0.5em;
 .availability .platform { font-weight: bold; }
 
 
+/*
+ * Additional styles for the distutils package.
+ */
+.du-command             { font-family: monospace; }
+.du-option              { font-family: avantgarde, sans-serif; }
+.du-filevar             { font-family: avantgarde, sans-serif;
+                          font-style: italic; }
+.du-xxx:before          { content: "** ";
+                          font-weight: bold; }
+.du-xxx:after           { content: " **";
+                          font-weight: bold; }
+
+
 /*
  * Some specialization for printed output.
  */

Doc/perl/distutils.perl

@@ -3,19 +3,19 @@
 package main;
 
 sub do_cmd_command {
-    return use_wrappers(@_[0], '<code>', '</code>');
+    return use_wrappers(@_[0], '<code class="du-command">', '</code>');
 }
 
 sub do_cmd_option {
-    return use_wrappers(@_[0], '<font face="sans-serif">', '</font>');
+    return use_wrappers(@_[0], '<span class="du-option">', '</span>');
 }
 
 sub do_cmd_filevar {
-    return use_wrappers(@_[0], '<font face="sans-serif"><i>', '</i></font>');
+    return use_wrappers(@_[0], '<span class="du-filevar">', '</span>');
 }
 
 sub do_cmd_XXX {
-    return use_wrappers(@_[0], '<b>** ', ' **</b>');
+    return use_wrappers(@_[0], '<b class="du-xxx">', '</b>');
 }
 
-1;
+1;  # Bad Perl.