diff --git a/merge-recursive.c b/merge-recursive.c
index b972a83b38..99c963558b 100644
--- a/merge-recursive.c
+++ b/merge-recursive.c
@@ -191,25 +191,26 @@ static void output(struct merge_options *o, int v, const char *fmt, ...)
 
 static void output_commit_title(struct merge_options *o, struct commit *commit)
 {
-	int i;
-	flush_output(o);
-	for (i = o->call_depth; i--;)
-		fputs("  ", stdout);
+	strbuf_addchars(&o->obuf, ' ', o->call_depth * 2);
 	if (commit->util)
-		printf("virtual %s\n", merge_remote_util(commit)->name);
+		strbuf_addf(&o->obuf, "virtual %s\n",
+			merge_remote_util(commit)->name);
 	else {
-		printf("%s ", find_unique_abbrev(commit->object.oid.hash, DEFAULT_ABBREV));
+		strbuf_addf(&o->obuf, "%s ",
+			find_unique_abbrev(commit->object.oid.hash,
+				DEFAULT_ABBREV));
 		if (parse_commit(commit) != 0)
-			printf(_("(bad commit)\n"));
+			strbuf_addf(&o->obuf, _("(bad commit)\n"));
 		else {
 			const char *title;
 			const char *msg = get_commit_buffer(commit, NULL);
 			int len = find_commit_subject(msg, &title);
 			if (len)
-				printf("%.*s\n", len, title);
+				strbuf_addf(&o->obuf, "%.*s\n", len, title);
 			unuse_commit_buffer(commit, msg);
 		}
 	}
+	flush_output(o);
 }
 
 static int add_cacheinfo(struct merge_options *o,