diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 3a867f600..c13a1ab11 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 Package: rticles
 Type: Package
 Title: Article Formats for R Markdown
-Version: 0.5.4
+Version: 0.5.5
 Authors@R: c(
   person("JJ", "Allaire", role = "aut", email = "jj@rstudio.com"),
   person("Yihui", "Xie", role = c("aut", "cre"), email = "xie@yihui.name", comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0003-0645-5666")),
diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 81685b3b7..fb07b6b17 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@ rticles 0.6 (unreleased)
 
 - Supports syntax highlighting in the `ieee_article()` and `acm_article()` formats (thanks, @rainer-rq-koelle, #182).
 
+- Disabled syntax highlighting for `rjournal_article()` (thanks, @eddelbuettel, #185).
+
 rticles 0.5
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 
diff --git a/R/rjournal_article.R b/R/rjournal_article.R
index 86388ca99..3407a892b 100644
--- a/R/rjournal_article.R
+++ b/R/rjournal_article.R
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ rjournal_article <- function(...) {
 
   template <- find_resource("rjournal_article", "template.tex")
 
-  base <- inherit_pdf_document(..., template = template)
+  base <- inherit_pdf_document(..., template = template, highlight = NULL)
 
   # Render will generate tex file, post-process hook generates appropriate
   # RJwrapper.tex and use pandoc to build pdf from that