\documentclass{nlctdoc} \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} \ifpdf \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} \usepackage{lmodern} \usepackage{fourier} \usepackage{mathpazo} \usepackage[scaled=.88]{helvet} \usepackage{courier} \fi \usepackage{cmap} \usepackage[colorlinks, bookmarks, hyperindex=false, pdfauthor={Nicola L.C. Talbot}, pdftitle={Upgrading from the glossary package to the glossaries package}]{hyperref} \usepackage{xr-hyper} \newcommand*{\igloskey}[2][newglossaryentry]{\icsopt{#1}{#2}} \newcommand*{\gloskey}[2][newglossaryentry]{\csopt{#1}{#2}} \newcommand*{\acrstyle}[1]{\texttt{#1}} \ifpdf \newcommand{\glsentrytext}[1]{\texttt{#1}} \externaldocument{glossaries-user} \fi \IndexPrologue{\section*{Index}} \setcounter{IndexColumns}{2} \title{Upgrading from the glossary package to the glossaries package} \author{Nicola L.C. Talbot} \date{2021-09-20} \newenvironment{oldway}{% \begin{labelledbox}{\styfmt{glossary}}\ttfamily\obeylines }{% \end{labelledbox}% } \newenvironment{newway}{% \begin{labelledbox}{\styfmt{glossaries}}\ttfamily\obeylines }{% \end{labelledbox}% } \begin{document} \maketitle \begin{abstract} The purpose of this document is to provide advice if you want to convert a \LaTeX\ document from using the obsolete \styfmt{glossary} package to the replacement \styfmt{glossaries} package. \end{abstract} \tableofcontents \section{Why the Need for a New Package?} \label{whyglossaries} The \styfmt{glossary} package started out as an example in a tutorial, but I decided that I may as well package it up and upload it to CTAN. Unfortunately it was fairly rigid and unable to adapt well to the wide variation in glossary styles. Users began making requests for enhancements, but with each enhancement the code became more complicated and bugs crept in. Each fix in one place seemed to cause another problem elsewhere. In the end, it was taking up too much of my time to maintain, so I decided to replace it with a much better designed package. With the new \styfmt{glossaries} package: \begin{itemize} \item you can define irregular plurals; \item glossary terms can have an associated symbol in addition to the name and description; \item new glossary styles are much easier to design; \item you can add dictionaries to supply translations for the fixed names used in headings and by some of the glossary styles; \item you can choose\footnote{as from v1.17. Previous versions were designed to be used with \app{makeindex} only} between using \app{makeindex} or \app{xindy} to sort the glossary. Using \app{xindy} means that: \begin{itemize} \item there is much better support for terms containing accented or non-Latin characters; \item there is support for non-standard location numbers; \end{itemize} \item you don't need to remember to escape \app{makeindex}'s special characters as this is done internally; \item hierarchical entries and homographs are supported;\footnote{as from v1.17} \item there is better support for cross-referencing glossary entries; \item acronyms are just another glossary term which helps to maintain consistency; \item different acronym styles are supported. \end{itemize} \section{Package Options} When converting a document that currently uses the obsolete \styfmt{glossary} package to the replacement \styfmt{glossaries} package, it should be fairly obvious that the first thing you need to do is replace \verb|\usepackage{glossary}| with \verb|\usepackage{glossaries}|, however some of the package options are different, so you may need to change those as well. Table~\ref{tab:pkgopt} shows the mappings from the \styfmt{glossary} to the \styfmt{glossaries} package options. \begin{table}[htbp] \caption[Mappings]{Mappings from \styfmt{glossary} to \styfmt{glossaries} package options} \label{tab:pkgopt} \begin{center} \begin{tabular}{ll} \bfseries \styfmt{glossary} option & \bfseries \styfmt{glossaries} option\\ style=list & style=list\\ style=altlist & style=altlist\\ style=long,header=none,border=none,cols=2 & style=long\\ style=long,header=plain,border=none,cols=2 & style=longheader\\ style=long,header=none,border=plain,cols=2 & style=longborder\\ style=long,header=plain,border=plain,cols=2 & style=longheaderborder\\ style=long,header=none,border=none,cols=3 & style=long3col\\ style=long,header=plain,border=none,cols=3 & style=long3colheader\\ style=long,header=none,border=plain,cols=3 & style=long3colborder\\ style=long,header=plain,border=plain,cols=3 & style=long3colheaderborder\\ style=super,header=none,border=none,cols=2 & style=super\\ style=super,header=plain,border=none,cols=2 & style=superheader\\ style=super,header=none,border=plain,cols=2 & style=superborder\\ style=super,header=plain,border=plain,cols=2 & style=superheaderborder\\ style=super,header=none,border=none,cols=3 & style=super3col\\ style=super,header=plain,border=none,cols=3 & style=super3colheader\\ style=super,header=none,border=plain,cols=3 & style=super3colborder\\ style=super,header=plain,border=plain,cols=3 & style=super3colheaderborder\\ number=none & nonumberlist\\ number=\meta{counter name} & counter=\meta{counter name}\\ toc & toc\\ hypertoc & toc\\ hyper & \emph{no corresponding option}\\ section=true & section\\ section=false & \emph{no corresponding option}\\ acronym & acronym\\ global & \emph{no corresponding option} \end{tabular} \end{center} \end{table} \section{Defining new glossary types} If you have created new glossary types, you will need to replace all instances of \begin{oldway} \ics{newglossarytype}\oarg{log-ext}\marg{type}\marg{out-ext}\marg{in-ext}\oarg{old style list}\newline \cs{newcommand}\verb|{\|\meta{type}name\verb|}|\marg{title} \end{oldway}% with \begin{newway} \ics{newglossary}\oarg{log-ext}\marg{type}\marg{out-ext}\marg{in-ext}\marg{title} \end{newway}% in the preamble, and, if the new glossary requires a different style to the main (default) glossary, you will also need to put \begin{newway} \ics{setglossarystyle}\marg{new style} \end{newway}% immediately before the glossary is displayed, or you can specify the style when you display the glossary using \ics{printglossary} (see below). The \meta{old style list} optional argument can be converted to \meta{new style} using the same mapping given in Table~\ref{tab:pkgopt}. For example, if your document contains the following: \begin{verbatim} \newglossarytype[nlg]{notation}{not}{ntn}[style=long,header] \newcommand{\notationname}{Index of Notation} \end{verbatim} You will need to replace the above two lines with: \begin{verbatim} \newglossary[nlg]{notation}{not}{ntn}{Index of Notation} \end{verbatim} in the preamble and \begin{verbatim} \setglossarystyle{longheader} \end{verbatim} immediately prior to displaying this glossary. Alternatively, you can specify the style using the \csopt{printglossary}{style} key in the optional argument of \ics{printglossary}. For example: \begin{verbatim} \printglossary[type=notation,style=longheader] \end{verbatim} Note that the glossary title is no longer specified using \cs{}\meta{glossary-type}\texttt{name} (except for \ics{glossaryname} and \ics{acronymname}) but is instead specified in the \meta{title} argument of \ics{newglossary}. The short title which is specified in the \styfmt{glossary} package by the command \cs{short}\meta{glossary-name}\texttt{name} is now specified using the \csopt{printglossary}{toctitle} key in the optional argument to \ics{printglossary}. \section{\texorpdfstring{\cs{make}\meta{glossary name}}{\textbackslash make...}} All instances of \cs{make}\meta{glossary name} (e.g.\ \ics{makeglossary} and \ics{makeacronym}) should be replaced by the single command \ics{makeglossaries}. For example, if your document contained the following: \begin{verbatim} \makeglossary \makeacronym \end{verbatim} then you should replace both lines with the single line: \begin{verbatim} \makeglossaries \end{verbatim} \section{Storing glossary information} With the old \styfmt{glossary} package you could optionally store glossary information for later use, or you could simply use \ics{glossary} whenever you wanted to add information to the glossary. With the new \styfmt{glossaries} package, the latter option is no longer available.\footnote{mainly because having a key value list in \ics{glossary} caused problems, but it also helps consistency.} If you have stored all the glossary information using \ics{storeglosentry}, then you will need to convert these commands into the equivalent \ics{newglossaryentry}. If you have only used \ics{glossary}, then see \sectionref{sec:csglossary}. Substitute all instances of \begin{oldway} \ics{storeglosentry}\marg{label}\marg{gls-entry} \end{oldway}% with \begin{newway} \ics{newglossaryentry}\marg{label}\marg{gls-entry} \end{newway}% This should be fairly easy to do using the search and replace facility in your editor (but see notes below). If you have used the optional argument of \ics{storeglosentry} (i.e.\ you have multiple glossaries) then you will need to substitute \begin{oldway} \ics{storeglosentry}\oarg{gls-type}\marg{label}\marg{gls-entry} \end{oldway}% with \begin{newway} \ics{newglossaryentry}\marg{label}\verb|{|\meta{gls-entry},type=\meta{gls-type}\verb|}| \end{newway} The glossary entry information \meta{gls-entry} may also need changing. If \meta{gls-entry} contains any of \app{makeindex}'s special characters (i.e.\ \texttt{@} \texttt{!} \verb|"| or \verb"|") then they should no longer be escaped with \verb'"' since the \styfmt{glossaries} package deals with these characters internally. For example, if your document contains the following: \begin{verbatim} \storeglosentry{card}{name={$"|\mathcal{S}"|$}, description={The cardinality of the set $\mathcal{S}$}} \end{verbatim} then you will need to replace it with: \begin{verbatim} \newglossaryentry{card}{name={$|\mathcal{S}|$}, description={The cardinality of the set $\mathcal{S}$}} \end{verbatim} The \csopt{storeglosentry}{format} and \csopt{storeglosentry}{number} keys available in \ics{storeglosentry} are not available with \ics{newglossaryentry}. \section{Adding an entry to the glossary} The \styfmt{glossary} package provided two basic means to add information to the glossary: firstly, the term was defined using \ics{storeglosentry} and the entries for that term were added using \ics{useglosentry}, \ics{useGlosentry} and \ics{gls}. Secondly, the term was added to the glossary using \ics{glossary}. This second approach is unavailable with the \styfmt{glossaries} package. \subsection{\texorpdfstring{\cs{useglosentry}}{\textbackslash useglosentry}} \label{sec:useglosentry} The \styfmt{glossary} package allows you to add information to the glossary for a predefined term without producing any text in the document using \begin{oldway} \ics{useglosentry}\oarg{old options}\marg{label} \end{oldway}% Any occurrences of this command will need to be replaced with \begin{newway} \ics{glsadd}\oarg{new options}\marg{label} \end{newway}% The \csopt{useglosentry}{format} key in \meta{old options} remains the same in \meta{new options}. However the \csopt{useglosentry}{number}\texttt{=}\meta{counter name} key in \meta{old options} should be replaced with \csopt{glsadd}{counter}\texttt{=}\meta{counter name} in \meta{new options}. \subsection{\texorpdfstring{\cs{useGlosentry}}{\textbackslash useGlosentry}} The \styfmt{glossary} package allows you to add information to the glossary for a predefined term with the given text using \begin{oldway} \ics{useGlosentry}\oarg{old options}\marg{label}\marg{text} \end{oldway}% Any occurrences of this command will need to be replaced with \begin{newway} \ics{glslink}\oarg{new options}\marg{label}\marg{text} \end{newway}% The mapping from \meta{old options} to \meta{new options} is the same as that given \sectionref{sec:useglosentry}. \subsection{\texorpdfstring{\cs{gls}}{\textbackslash gls}} Both the \styfmt{glossary} and the \styfmt{glossaries} packages define the command \ics{gls}. In this case, the only thing you need to change is the \csopt{gls}{number} key in the optional argument to \csopt{gls}{counter}. Note that the new form of \ics{gls} also takes a final optional argument which can be used to insert text into the automatically generated text. \subsection{\texorpdfstring{\cs{glossary}}{\textbackslash glossary}} \label{sec:csglossary} When using the \styfmt{glossaries} package, you should not use \ics{glossary} directly.\footnote{This is because \ics{glossary} requires the argument to be in a specific format and doesn't use the \meta{key}=\meta{value} format that the old glossary package used. The new package's internal commands set this format, as well as escaping any of \app{makeindex}'s or \app{xindy}'s special characters. What's more, the format has changed as from v1.17 to allow the new package to be used with either \app{makeindex} or \app{xindy}.} If, with the old package, you have opted to explicitly use \ics{glossary} instead of storing the glossary information with \ics{storeglosentry}, then converting from \styfmt{glossary} to \styfmt{glossaries} will be more time-consuming, although in the end, I hope you will see the benefits.\footnote{From the user's point of view, using \ics{glossary} throughout the document is time consuming, and if you use it more than once for the same term, there's a chance extra spaces may creep in which will cause \app{makeindex} to treat the two entries as different terms, even though they look the same in the document.} If you have used \ics{glossary} with the old glossary package, you will instead need to define the relevant glossary terms using \ics{newglossaryentry} and reference the terms using \ics{glsadd}, \ics{glslink}, \ics{gls} etc. If you don't like the idea of continually scrolling back to the preamble to type all your \ics{newglossaryentry} commands, you may prefer to create a new file, in which to store all these commands, and then input that file in your document's preamble. Most text editors and front-ends allow you to have multiple files open, and you can tab back and forth between them. \section{Acronyms} In the \styfmt{glossary} package, acronyms were treated differently to glossary entries. This resulted in inconsistencies and sprawling unmaintainable code. The new \styfmt{glossaries} package treats acronyms in exactly the same way as normal glossary terms. In fact, in the \styfmt{glossaries} package, the default definition of: \begin{newway} \ics{newacronym}\oarg{options}\marg{label}\marg{abbrv}\marg{long} \end{newway} is a shortcut for: \begin{newway} \ics{newglossaryentry}\marg{label}\{type=\cs{acronymtype}, name=\marg{abbrv}, description=\marg{long}, text=\marg{abbrv}, first=\{\meta{long} (\meta{abbrv})\}, plural=\{\meta{abbrv}s\}, firstplural=\{\meta{long}s (\meta{abbrv}s)\}, \meta{options}\} \end{newway} This is different to the \styfmt{glossary} package which set the \csopt{newglossaryentry}{name} key to \meta{long} (\meta{abbrv}) and allowed you to set a description using the \csopt{newglossaryentry}{description} key. If you still want to do this, you can use one of the description styles, such as \acrstyle{long-short-desc}, and use the \csopt{newglossaryentry}{description} key in the optional argument of \ics{newacronym}. For example, if your document originally had the following: \begin{verbatim} \newacronym{SVM}{Support Vector Machine}{description=Statistical pattern recognition technique} \end{verbatim} Then you would need to first set the style: \begin{verbatim} \setacronymstyle{long-short-desc} \end{verbatim} and change the acronym definition to: \begin{verbatim} \newacronym[description=Statistical pattern recognition technique]{svm}{SVM}{Support Vector Machine} \end{verbatim} You can then reference the acronym using any of the new referencing commands, such as \ics{gls} or \ics{glsadd}. With the old \styfmt{glossary} package, when you defined an acronym, it also defined a command \cs{}\meta{acr-name} which could be used to display the acronym in the text. So the above SVM example would create the command \cs{SVM} with the old package. In the new \styfmt{glossaries} package, the acronyms are just another type of glossary entry, so they are displayed using \ics{gls}\marg{label}. Therefore, in the above example, you will also need to replace all occurrences of \cs{SVM} with \verb|\gls{svm}|. If you have used \ics{useacronym} instead of \cs{}\meta{acr-name}, then you will need to replace all occurrences of \begin{oldway} \ics{useacronym}\oarg{insert}\marg{acr-name} \end{oldway}% with \begin{newway} \ics{gls}\marg{label}\oarg{insert} \end{newway}% Note that the starred versions of \ics{useacronym} and \cs{}\meta{acr-name} (which make the first letter uppercase) should be replaced with \ics{Gls}\marg{label}. Alternatively (as from v1.18 of the \styfmt{glossaries} package), you can use \ics{oldacronym} which uses the same syntax as the old \styfmt{glossary} package's \ics{newacronym} and also defines \cs{}\meta{acr-name}. For example, if your document originally had the following: \begin{oldway} \begin{verbatim} \newacronym{SVM}{Support Vector Machine}{description=Statistical pattern recognition technique} \end{verbatim} \end{oldway} then you can change this to: \begin{newway} \begin{verbatim} \oldacronym{SVM}{Support Vector Machine}{description=Statistical pattern recognition technique} \end{verbatim} \end{newway} You can then continue to use \cs{SVM}\@. However, remember that \LaTeX\ generally ignores spaces after command names that consist of alphabetical characters. You will therefore need to force a space after \cs{}\meta{acr-name}, unless you also load the \styfmt{xspace} package. (See \xrsectionref{sec:acronyms}{glossaries-user}{Acronyms} of the \styfmt{glossaries} documentation for further details.) Note that \ics{oldacronym} uses its first argument to define the acronym's label (as used by commands like \ics{gls}), so in the above example, with the new \styfmt{glossaries} package, \cs{SVM} becomes a shortcut for \verb|\gls{SVM}| and \cs{SVM*} becomes a shortcut for \verb|\Gls{SVM}|. \subsection{\texorpdfstring{\cs{acrln} and \cs{acrsh}}{\textbackslash acrln and \textbackslash acrsh}} In the \styfmt{glossary} package, it is possible to produce the long and short forms of an acronym without adding an entry to the glossary using \ics{acrln} and \ics{acrsh}. With the \styfmt{glossaries} package (provided you defined the acronym using \ics{newacronym} or \ics{oldacronym} and provided you haven't redefined \ics{newacronym}) you can replace \begin{oldway} \ics{acrsh}\marg{acr-name} \end{oldway}% with \begin{newway} \ics{acrshort}\marg{label} \end{newway}% and you can replace \begin{oldway} \ics{acrln}\marg{acr-name} \end{oldway}% with \begin{newway} \ics{acrlong}\marg{label} \end{newway}% The \styfmt{glossaries} package also provides the related commands \ics{acrshortpl} (plural short form) and \ics{acrlongpl} (plural long form) as well as upper case variations. If you use the \styfmt{glossaries} \qt{shortcuts} package option, you can use \ics{acs} in place of \ics{acrshort} and \ics{acl} in place of \ics{acrlong}. See \xrsectionref{sec:acronyms}{glossaries-user}{Acronyms} of the \styfmt{glossaries} manual for further details of how to use these commands. \subsection{\texorpdfstring{\cs{ifacronymfirstuse}}{\textbackslash ifacronymfirstuse}} The \styfmt{glossary} package command \begin{oldway} \ics{ifacronymfirstuse}\marg{acr-name}\marg{text1}\marg{text2} \end{oldway}% can be replaced by the \styfmt{glossaries} command: \begin{newway} \ics{ifglsused}\marg{label}\marg{text2}\marg{text1} \end{newway}% Note that \ics{ifglsused} evaluates the opposite condition to that of \ics{ifacronymfirstuse} which is why the last two arguments have been reversed. \subsection{\texorpdfstring{\cs{resetacronym} and \cs{unsetacronym}}{\textbackslash resetacronym and \textbackslash unsetacronym}} The \styfmt{glossary} package allows you to reset and unset the acronym flag which is used to determine whether the acronym has been used in the document. The \styfmt{glossaries} package also provides a means to do this on either a local or a global level. To reset an acronym, you will need to replace: \begin{oldway} \ics{resetacronym}\marg{acr-name} \end{oldway}% with either \begin{newway} \ics{glsreset}\marg{label} \end{newway}% or \begin{newway} \ics{glslocalreset}\marg{label} \end{newway} To unset an acronym, you will need to replace: \begin{oldway} \ics{unsetacronym}\marg{acr-name} \end{oldway}% with either \begin{newway} \ics{glsunset}\marg{label} \end{newway}% or \begin{newway} \ics{glslocalunset}\marg{label} \end{newway} To reset all acronyms, you will need to replace: \begin{oldway} \ics{resetallacronyms} \end{oldway} with \begin{newway} \ics{glsresetall}[\ics{acronymtype}] \end{newway} or \begin{newway} \ics{glslocalresetall}[\ics{acronymtype}] \end{newway} To unset all acronyms, you will need to replace: \begin{oldway} \ics{unsetallacronyms} \end{oldway} with \begin{newway} \ics{glsunsetall}[\ics{acronymtype}] \end{newway} or \begin{newway} \ics{glslocalunsetall}[\ics{acronymtype}] \end{newway} \section{Displaying the glossary} The \styfmt{glossary} package provides the command \ics{printglossary} (or \cs{print}\meta{type} for other glossary types) which can be used to print individual glossaries. The \styfmt{glossaries} package provides the command \ics{printglossaries} which will print all the glossaries which have been defined, or \ics{printglossary}\oarg{options} to print individual glossaries. So if you just have \ics{printglossary}, then you can leave it as it is, but if you have, say: \begin{verbatim} \printglossary \printglossary[acronym] \end{verbatim} or \begin{verbatim} \printglossary \printacronym \end{verbatim} then you will need to replace this with either \begin{verbatim} \printglossaries \end{verbatim} or \begin{verbatim} \printglossary \printglossary[type=\acronymtype] \end{verbatim} The \styfmt{glossary} package allows you to specify a short title (for the table of contents and page header) by defining a command of the form \cs{short}\meta{glossary-type}\texttt{name}. The \styfmt{glossaries} package doesn't do this, but instead provides the \csopt{printglossary}{toctitle} key which can be used in the optional argument to \ics{printglossary}. For example, if you have created a new glossary type called \texttt{notation}, and you had defined \begin{verbatim} \newcommand{\shortnotationname}{Notation} \end{verbatim} then you would need to use the \csopt{printglossary}{toctitle} key: \begin{verbatim} \printglossary[type=notation,toctitle=Notation] \end{verbatim} The \styfmt{glossaries} package will ignore \ics{shortnotationname}, so unless you have used it elsewhere in the document, you may as well remove the definition. \section{Processing Your Document} If you convert your document from using the \styfmt{glossary} package to the \styfmt{glossaries} package, you will need to delete any of the additional files, such as the \filetype{.glo} file, that were created by the \styfmt{glossary} package, as the \styfmt{glossaries} package uses a different format. Remember also, that if you used the \app{makeglos} Perl script, you will need to use the \app{makeglossaries} Perl script instead. As from v1.17, the \styfmt{glossaries} package can be used with either \app{makeindex} or \app{xindy}. Since \app{xindy} was designed to be multilingual, the new \styfmt{glossaries} package is a much better option for non-English documents. If you use the extension package, \sty{glossaries-extra}, then you also have the option of using \app{bib2gls} instead (which also provides multilingual support). For further information on using \app{makeglossaries}, \app{makeindex} or \app{xindy} to create your glossaries, see \xrsectionref{sec:makeglossaries}{glossaries-user}{Generating the Associated Glossary Files} of the \styfmt{glossaries} documentation. \section{Troubleshooting} Please check the \urlfootref{http://www.dickimaw-books.com/faqs/glossariesfaq.html}{FAQ} for the \styfmt{glossaries} package if you have any problems. \PrintIndex \end{document}