diff --git a/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/shared/utils/xml/PrettyPrintXMLWriter.java b/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/shared/utils/xml/PrettyPrintXMLWriter.java
index f611d2f9..523a106a 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/shared/utils/xml/PrettyPrintXMLWriter.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/shared/utils/xml/PrettyPrintXMLWriter.java
@@ -95,7 +95,12 @@ public PrettyPrintXMLWriter(Writer writer) {
      * @param doctype can be null
      */
     public PrettyPrintXMLWriter(PrintWriter writer, String lineIndent, String encoding, String doctype) {
-        this(writer, lineIndent.toCharArray(), "\n".toCharArray(), encoding, doctype);
+        this(
+                writer,
+                lineIndent != null ? lineIndent.toCharArray() : DEFAULT_LINE_INDENT,
+                "\n".toCharArray(),
+                encoding,
+                doctype);
     }
 
     /**
@@ -135,7 +140,12 @@ public PrettyPrintXMLWriter(Writer writer, String encoding, String doctype) {
      */
     public PrettyPrintXMLWriter(
             PrintWriter writer, String lineIndent, String lineSeparator, String encoding, String doctype) {
-        this(writer, lineIndent.toCharArray(), lineSeparator.toCharArray(), encoding, doctype);
+        this(
+                writer,
+                lineIndent != null ? lineIndent.toCharArray() : DEFAULT_LINE_INDENT,
+                lineSeparator != null ? lineSeparator.toCharArray() : "\n".toCharArray(),
+                encoding,
+                doctype);
     }
 
     /**
diff --git a/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/shared/utils/xml/PrettyPrintXmlWriterTest.java b/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/shared/utils/xml/PrettyPrintXmlWriterTest.java
index ee210cb0..5ee265f5 100644
--- a/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/shared/utils/xml/PrettyPrintXmlWriterTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/org/apache/maven/shared/utils/xml/PrettyPrintXmlWriterTest.java
@@ -93,6 +93,19 @@ public void testPrettyPrintXMLWriterWithGivenLineIndenter() throws IOException {
         assertEquals(expectedResult("    "), w.toString());
     }
 
+    @Test
+    public void testPrettyPrintXMLWriterWithNullLineIndent() throws IOException {
+        StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
+        PrettyPrintXMLWriter writer = new PrettyPrintXMLWriter(sw, (String) null);
+
+        writer.startElement(HTML.Tag.HTML.toString());
+        writeXhtmlHead(writer);
+        writeXhtmlBody(writer);
+        writer.endElement(); // Tag.HTML
+
+        assertEquals(expectedResult(), sw.toString());
+    }
+
     @Test
     public void testEscapeXmlAttributeWindows() throws IOException {
         // Windows