We investigate the magnetic coupling at the Co/NiO interface using soft x-ray magnetic linear dichroism (XMLD) and circular dichroism taking explicitly into account the recently observed angular dependence of the XMLD with respect to the crystallographic axes. We find that the Co moments are aligned perpendicular to the NiO moments. We discuss the impact of the anisotropic XMLD on the intensity ratio of the two peaks at the Ni L{sub 2} edge, which is commonly employed to determine the spin orientation in antiferromagnets using XMLD.