diff --git a/docs/partition.rst b/docs/partition.rst
index a47639e9..f519f42c 100644
--- a/docs/partition.rst
+++ b/docs/partition.rst
@@ -16,8 +16,7 @@ Therefore only the mesh elements for this rank are loaded, dramatically reducing
 
 .. warning::
 
-   The mesh should be have been permuted prior to hdf5 conversion for maximum MPI performance.
-   Failure to do so will result in significantly degraded runtime performance!
+   The mesh must be permuted using the metis partitioning method prior to hdf5 conversion for maximum MPI performance.
 
    Please see  :ref:`Mesh permutation <target mesh-permutation>`  for more details.
 
@@ -119,6 +118,7 @@ Output
 
 json to hdf5
 *************
+If you do not specify any mpi configuration options, then only the ``.json`` to ``.h5`` conversion will be done.
 Output will be two ``.h5`` files called ``basename_mesh.h5`` and ``basename_param.h5``.
 For example if the input mesh is ``granger1m.mesh`` then basename is ``granger1m`` resulting in the files
 
diff --git a/src/preprocessing/partition/main.cpp b/src/preprocessing/partition/main.cpp
index cbe33b25..9cb6e4b3 100644
--- a/src/preprocessing/partition/main.cpp
+++ b/src/preprocessing/partition/main.cpp
@@ -1469,12 +1469,16 @@ int main(int argc, char* argv[])
 
     auto is_json_mesh = boost::filesystem::path(mesh_filename).extension().string() == ".mesh";
 
-    if (is_json_mesh)
+    if (vm.count("mpi-ranks") && is_json_mesh)
     {
         SPDLOG_WARN("The input mesh is in json format. It MUST be converted to hdf5 before it can be partitioned.\n"
                        " Once the hdf5 conversion is done, this tool will re-run with the h5 mesh as input to fully "
                        "partition the mesh.");
     }
+    else if(is_json_mesh)
+    {
+        SPDLOG_DEBUG("Converting mesh from json to h5.");
+    }
 
     if (!vm.count("mesh-file"))
     {
@@ -1503,7 +1507,7 @@ int main(int argc, char* argv[])
         SPDLOG_WARN("MPI ranks will be ignored for the json -> h5 conversion. ");
     }
 
-    if (!vm.count("max-ghost-distance"))
+    if (!vm.count("max-ghost-distance") && vm.count("mpi-ranks"))
     {
         SPDLOG_WARN("Using default max ghost distance of 100 m");
     }