New map file with MikTeX

Question

I am new to MikTeX. I have set up a texmf tree and included that into MikTeX (works OK because the style files are found). But the font in that directory cannot be used yet, because the pdftex.map does not have the info from my map file.

I run initexmf --edit-config-file updmap (also with --admin) and enter (as the only line)

Map mymap.map

then I run updmap (also with --admin and --verbose), my mapfile gets listed as Parsing "c:\Path\to\mapfile.map".... But pdftex does not work, because it fails with:

Trying to make PK font abc8x at 600 DPI...
...

When I manually include the map file in first line of my .tex file

 \pdfmapfile{+mymap.map}

everything is OK.

How do I do without the \pdfmapfile{...} line?

Answer 1

(Converting Ulrike's comments to an answer)

Assuming that you did run initexmf and updmap without the --admin key: Update the FNDB with initexmf -u, run updmap --verbose then try again your font. If it doesn't work: Check which pdftex.map updmap writes. Check if this it the map file your document use (see end of the log-file). Check if this pdftex.map contains the entries of your map.

Explanation

You have a multi user installation with an admin and a user mode. And in contrast to the widespread prejudice the admin mode is not the more powerful. In general, user settings (packages, configurations, map files, texmf trees, ...) take precedence over the default settings from the admin. What you do in user mode will normally work directly and without problems - but only for this user. What you do in admin mode will work for all user - as long as they don't have personal settings.

Note

Exactly the same happens on Unix systems. Running updmap and not updmap-sys (with superuser privileges) will leave a pdftex.map in the user space that will have precedence over the system wide one. This may have undesirable effects in case of an update to the distribution that changes the font subsystem.