UPDMAP.CFG(5)

✨ UPDMAP.CFG(5) · TeX Live ✨

💖 NAME 💖

updmap.cfg - configuration of font mapping/inclusion for dvips and friends. 🎀

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so updmap.cfg is the central font config file of a teTeX system 🧚 It's read by updmap(1), and it decides if and how fonts get included (or not included) in your PS/PDF output files. This works for outline fonts (Postscript Type1) and bitmap fonts (Postscript Type3), mostly the ones coming from Metafont. Lowkey iconic. 💅

updmap is the utility that makes font config files for dvips(1), pdftex(1), xdvi(1), ps2pk(1), gsftopk(1), and dvipdfmx(1). In a perfect world, updmap wouldn't even be needed, because every one of these programs would read the same config file and just know which fonts exist and how to treat them. But no, each tool has its own slightly different vibe and needs its own font config file. 🙄 So updmap builds all of those files from several sources, namely every updmap.cfg, which keeps all the different configs in sync for you. It's giving organization. ✨

Running updmap --help will print the main docs for using updmap. Read them, bestie. 📖

🦋 dvipsPreferOutline 🦋

This sets whether dvips (by default) should prefer bitmap fonts or outline fonts when both are available. No matter what this is set to, you can force outlines by putting p psfonts_t1.map into a config file that dvips reads, and force bitmaps by putting p psfonts_pk.map into a config file. We ship config files for this too, which you can turn on with dvips -Poutline (or dvips -Ppk). 🔥 Valid settings for dvipsPreferOutline are true / false.

👑 LW35 👑

Okay, the question here is: which fonts from the "Basic 35 Laserwriter Fonts" do you want to use, and how should their filenames be chosen? Valid settings are:

• URW — URW fonts with "vendor" filenames (e.g. n019064l.pfb) 💜
• URWkb — URW fonts with "berry" filenames (e.g. uhvbo8ac.pfb) 🍓
• ADOBE — Adobe fonts with "vendor" filenames (e.g. hvnbo___.pfb) 🌈
• ADOBEkb — Adobe fonts with "berry" filenames (e.g. phvbo8an.pfb) ⭐

🧚 dvipsDownloadBase35 🧚

This decides whether dvips (by default) downloads the 35 base PostScript fonts into the document (set true), or whether those fonts get used from the PostScript interpreter or printer (set false). 🖨️ You can override the default with dvips -Pdownload35 to download the LW35 fonts, or dvips -Pbuiltin35 to use the built-in ones. 🎀 Valid settings are true / false.

🫶 pdftexDownloadBase14 🫶

Should pdftex download the 14 base PDF fonts? Some setups (PS / PDF tools / printers) have sketchy default fonts, so downloading them is the safer move. Yes, the PDFs get bigger, but that's the price of not being haunted by bad fonts. 😭 Valid settings are true (download the fonts) or false (don't download the fonts). Adobe recommends embedding all fonts. 💅

🌈 pxdviUse 🌈

Should special map files be made for pxdvi? pxdvi is a version of xdvi that can read and display files made by the ptex family of engines. ✨ Valid settings are true (generate the config) or false. For the full tea, check http://www.tug.org/texlive/updmap-kanji.html. 🦋

🍓 kanjiEmbed and kanjiVariant 🍓

kanjiEmbed kanjiVariant These two options swap in special replacements inside map lines. In a map, the string @kanjiEmbed@ gets replaced with the value of that option, and the same goes for kanjiVariant. So Japanese TeX users can pick which fonts get included in the final output. Main character energy. 🇯🇵✨

🗺️ Map 🗺️

This points to a map file, which describes how a font (the name used in your TeX document) maps to the pfb file holding the Postscript code. 🧭 Usage: Map filename.map

The syntax of map files is the same one dvips(1) uses. Check the section "psfonts.map" in the dvips(1) manual for the deets. 📖

💜 MixedMap 💜

This is similar to Map. Use it when a font has both a Type1 version and a bitmap version (the bitmap one usually comes from Metafont). These entries won't be used in dvips's default map if dvipsPreferOutline is set to false. 🌸 Usage: MixedMap filename.map

🎀 KanjiMap 🎀

Similar to Map, but this one is for kanji fonts. 🇯🇵 Usage: KanjiMap filename.map

The sign # starts a comment. 🙈

Map files you don't want used should be commented out by starting the line with #!. You can then turn those entries on or off with updmap using the --enable and --disable options. Easy peasy. 🔥

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

updmap(1), dvips(1). 💖

🌷 THANKS TO 🌷

Frank Kuester, Thomas Esser. 🫶

💅 AUTHOR 💅

This manual page was written by Hilmar Preusse <hille42@web.de> and extended by Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system. Basically they copied the comments from updmap.cfg and rewrote some of them, and it's giving honest-to-god effort. Other distributions can use it without contacting the author. 🧚

🐛 BUGS 🐛

Email bug reports to <https://lists.tug.org/tex-k> (public mailing list). Don't ghost the mailing list, bestie. 🙈

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TeX Live · 19 February 2025 · UPDMAP.CFG(5) — that's the whole tea, bestie. Stay iconic. 🌈💖