By default, the Maven Javadoc Plugin tries to auto-detect the Javadoc Tool executable from the Java property java.home or from the environment variable JAVA_HOME .
You could also specify the executable of the Javadoc Tool to use. For example:
<project>
...
<reporting>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<javadocExecutable>C:\jdk1.6.0\bin\javadoc.exe</javadocExecutable>
...
</configuration>
</plugin>
...
</plugins>
</reporting>
...
</project>
In the same way, the Maven Javadoc Plugin tries to auto-detect the Javadoc Tool version by calling javadoc -J-fullversion .
You could also specify the version of the Javadoc Tool executable. For example:
<project>
...
<reporting>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<javadocVersion>1.5</javadocVersion>
...
</configuration>
</plugin>
...
</plugins>
</reporting>
...
</project>
Note : You could have a warning if the javadocVersion specified is not the same that the Javadoc Tool executable.