diff --git a/spacy/tests/matcher/test_matcher_api.py b/spacy/tests/matcher/test_matcher_api.py
index a826a0a0e..74d4b8b00 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/matcher/test_matcher_api.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/matcher/test_matcher_api.py
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ import pytest
 import re
 from mock import Mock
 from spacy.matcher import Matcher, DependencyMatcher
-from spacy.tokens import Doc, Token
+from spacy.tokens import Doc, Token, Span
 from ..doc.test_underscore import clean_underscore
 
 
@@ -458,3 +458,10 @@ def test_matcher_callback(en_vocab):
     doc = Doc(en_vocab, words=["This", "is", "a", "test", "."])
     matches = matcher(doc)
     mock.assert_called_once_with(matcher, doc, 0, matches)
+
+def test_matcher_span(matcher):
+    text = "JavaScript is good but Java is better"
+    doc = Doc(matcher.vocab, words=text.split())
+    span = Span(doc, 0, 3)
+    matches = matcher(span.as_doc())
+    assert len(matches) == 1
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/spacy/tokens/doc.pyx b/spacy/tokens/doc.pyx
index 0c90929c3..ec0cd66b8 100644
--- a/spacy/tokens/doc.pyx
+++ b/spacy/tokens/doc.pyx
@@ -260,7 +260,7 @@ cdef class Doc:
     def is_nered(self):
         """Check if the document has named entities set. Will return True if
         *any* of the tokens has a named entity tag set (even if the others are
-        unknown values).
+        unknown values), or if the document is empty.
         """
         if len(self) == 0:
             return True
diff --git a/website/docs/api/doc.md b/website/docs/api/doc.md
index 87b854a8c..ab85c1deb 100644
--- a/website/docs/api/doc.md
+++ b/website/docs/api/doc.md
@@ -657,10 +657,10 @@ The L2 norm of the document's vector representation.
 | `user_data`                             | -            | A generic storage area, for user custom data.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              |
 | `lang` <Tag variant="new">2.1</Tag>     | int          | Language of the document's vocabulary.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
 | `lang_` <Tag variant="new">2.1</Tag>    | unicode      | Language of the document's vocabulary.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
-| `is_tagged`                             | bool         | A flag indicating that the document has been part-of-speech tagged.                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |
-| `is_parsed`                             | bool         | A flag indicating that the document has been syntactically parsed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         |
-| `is_sentenced`                          | bool         | A flag indicating that sentence boundaries have been applied to the document.                                                                                                                                                                                                              |
-| `is_nered` <Tag variant="new">2.1</Tag> | bool         | A flag indicating that named entities have been set. Will return `True` if _any_ of the tokens has an entity tag set, even if the others are unknown.                                                                                                                                      |
+| `is_tagged`                             | bool         | A flag indicating that the document has been part-of-speech tagged. Returns `True` if the `Doc` is empty.                                                                                                                                                                                  |
+| `is_parsed`                             | bool         | A flag indicating that the document has been syntactically parsed. Returns `True` if the `Doc` is empty.                                                                                                                                                                                   |
+| `is_sentenced`                          | bool         | A flag indicating that sentence boundaries have been applied to the document. Returns `True` if the `Doc` is empty.                                                                                                                                                                        |
+| `is_nered` <Tag variant="new">2.1</Tag> | bool         | A flag indicating that named entities have been set. Will return `True` if the `Doc` is empty, or if _any_ of the tokens has an entity tag set, even if the others are unknown.                                                                                                            |
 | `sentiment`                             | float        | The document's positivity/negativity score, if available.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
 | `user_hooks`                            | dict         | A dictionary that allows customization of the `Doc`'s properties.                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
 | `user_token_hooks`                      | dict         | A dictionary that allows customization of properties of `Token` children.                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |