diff --git a/docs/example_generation.jl b/docs/example_generation.jl
index 6893f8eb..12d66202 100644
--- a/docs/example_generation.jl
+++ b/docs/example_generation.jl
@@ -126,6 +126,9 @@ function generate_markdown(pkgname::Symbol)
 
     try
 
+      # we want to always produce consistent results
+      srand(1234)
+
       # run the code
       map(eval, example.exprs)
 
diff --git a/test/runtests.jl b/test/runtests.jl
index 796477d5..dec73172 100644
--- a/test/runtests.jl
+++ b/test/runtests.jl
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ using FactCheck
 
 # don't actually show the plots
 plotDefault!(:show, false)
-
+srand(1234)
 
 # note: we wrap in a try block so that the tests only run if we have the backend installed
 try