diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 99a99417..88b5c21b 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -7,11 +7,9 @@ default: none
 none:
 	@echo 'Did you want to build PRISM? Do "cd prism" and then "make"'
 
-# By default, extract version number from Version.java
+# By default, extract version number from Java code using printversion
 # Can be overridden by passing VERSION=xxx
-VERSION_NUM = $(shell grep versionString prism/src/prism/Version.java | sed -E 's/[^"]+"([^"]+)"[^"]+/\1/')
-VERSION_SUFFIX = $(shell grep versionSuffixString prism/src/prism/Version.java | sed -E 's/[^"]+"([^"]*)"[^"]+/\1/')
-VERSION = $(VERSION_NUM)$(VERSION_SUFFIX)
+VERSION = $(shell SRC_DIR=prism/src prism/src/scripts/printversion.sh 2> /dev/null)
 
 # Build a source distribution
 dist_src: version
diff --git a/prism/Makefile b/prism/Makefile
index ece2aaf5..c92f07e0 100644
--- a/prism/Makefile
+++ b/prism/Makefile
@@ -381,7 +381,9 @@ bin_scripts:
 	done;
 	@./install.sh silent
 
-VERSION=# default value for VERSION is blank to force provision at command-line 
+# Unless VERSION has been passed in (as VERSION=xxx),
+# extract version number from Java code using printversion
+VERSION = $(shell SRC_DIR=$(SRC_DIR) $(SRC_DIR)/scripts/printversion.sh 2> /dev/null)
 
 dist_src: dist_check_version dist_copy clean_all dist_tidy