diff --git a/MANUAL.txt b/MANUAL.txt
index 74577d727fd7..393ae8f8c0fd 100644
--- a/MANUAL.txt
+++ b/MANUAL.txt
@@ -1082,7 +1082,7 @@ header when requesting a document from a URL:
     headings to become `\part{..}`, while second-level headings
     remain as their default type.
 
-`-N`, `--number-sections`
+`-N`, `--number-sections=[true|false]`
 
 :   Number section headings in LaTeX, ConTeXt, HTML, Docx, ms, or EPUB
     output.  By default, sections are not numbered.  Sections with class
diff --git a/src/Text/Pandoc/App/CommandLineOptions.hs b/src/Text/Pandoc/App/CommandLineOptions.hs
index c50ec6208298..c425e2a18f98 100644
--- a/src/Text/Pandoc/App/CommandLineOptions.hs
+++ b/src/Text/Pandoc/App/CommandLineOptions.hs
@@ -411,8 +411,11 @@ options =
                  "" -- "Number of levels to include in TOC"
 
     , Option "N" ["number-sections"]
-                 (NoArg
-                  (\opt -> return opt { optNumberSections = True }))
+                  (OptArg
+                   (\arg opt -> do
+                        boolValue <- readBoolFromOptArg "--number-sections/-N" arg
+                        return opt { optNumberSections = boolValue })
+                  "true|false")
                  "" -- "Number sections"
 
     , Option "" ["number-offset"]