1. Introduction

The glossaries package is provided to assist generating lists of terms, symbols or abbreviations. (For convenience, these lists are all referred to as glossaries in this manual.) The package has a certain amount of flexibility, allowing the user to customize the format of the glossary and define multiple glossaries. It also supports glossary styles that include symbols (in addition to a name and description) for glossary entries. There is provision for loading a database of glossary terms. Only those terms indexed^1.1 in the document will be added to the glossary.

The glossaries-extra package, which is distributed as a separated bundle, extends the capabilities of the glossaries package. The simplest document can be created with glossaries-extra (which internally loads the glossaries package):

The glossaries package replaces the glossary package which is now obsolete. Please see the document “Upgrading from the glossary package to the glossaries package” for assistance in upgrading.

One of the strengths of this package is its flexibility, however the drawback of this is the necessity of having a large manual that covers all the various settings. If you are daunted by the size of the manual, try starting off with the much shorter guide for beginners.

This document uses the glossaries package. For example, when viewing the PDF version of this document in a hyperlinked-enabled PDF viewer (such as Adobe Reader or Okular) if you click on the word “xindy” you’ll be taken to the entry in the glossary where there’s a brief description of the term “xindy”. This is the way the glossaries mechanism works. An indexing application is used to generated the sorted list of terms. The indexing applications are command line interface (CLI) tools, which means they can be run directly from a command prompt or terminal, or can be integrated into some text editors, or you can use a build tool such as arara to run them.

The remainder of this introductory section covers the following:

• §1.1 Indexing Options lists the available indexing options.
• §1.2 Sample Documents lists the sample documents provided with this package.
• §1.3 Dummy Entries for Testing lists the dummy glossary files that may be used for testing.
• §1.4 Multi-Lingual Support provides information for users who wish to write in a language other than English.
• §1.5 Generating the Associated Glossary Files describes how to use an indexing application to create the sorted glossaries for your document (Options 2 or 3).

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1.1 Indexing Options

The basic idea behind the glossaries package is that you first define your entries (terms, symbols or abbreviations). Then you can reference these within your document (like \cite or \ref). You can also, optionally, display a list of the entries you have referenced in your document (the glossary). This last part, displaying the glossary, is the part that most new users find difficult. There are three options available with the base glossaries package and two further options with the extension package glossaries-extra. An overview of these options is given in table 1.1.

If you are developing a class or package that loads glossaries, I recommend that you don’t force the user into a particular indexing method by adding an unconditional \makeglossaries into your class or package code. Aside from forcing the user into a particular indexing method, it means that they’re unable to use any commands that must come before \makeglossaries (such as \newglossary) and they can’t switch off the indexing whilst working on a draft document.

For a comparison of the various methods when used with large entry sets or when used with symbols such as \alpha, see the glossaries performance page.

Option 1 (TEX)

This option doesn’t require an external indexing application but, with the default alphabetic sorting, it’s very slow with severe limitations. If you want a sorted list, it doesn’t work well for extended Latin alphabets or non-Latin alphabets. However, if you use the sanitizesort=false package option (the default for Option 1) then the standard LATEX accent commands will be ignored, so if an entry’s name is set to {\’e}lite then the sort value will default to elite if sanitizesort=false is used and will default to \’elite if sanitizesort=true is used. If you have any other kinds of commands that don’t expand to ASCII characters, such as \alpha or \si, then you must use sanitizesort=true or change the sort method (sort=use or sort=def) in the package options or explicitly set the sort key when you define the relevant entries. For example:

This option works best with the sort=def or sort=use setting. For any other setting, be prepared for a long document build time, especially if you have a lot of entries defined. This option is intended as a last resort for alphabetical sorting. This option allows a mixture of sort methods. (For example, sorting by word order for one glossary and order of use for another.) This option is not suitable for hierarchical glossaries and does not form ranges in the number lists. If you really can’t use an indexing application consider using Option 5 instead.

1. Add
   \makenoidxglossaries

   to your preamble (before you start defining your entries, as described in §4 Defining Glossary Entries).

2. Put
   \printnoidxglossary

   where you want your list of entries to appear (described in §10 Displaying a glossary). Alternatively, to display all glossaries use the iterative command:

   \printnoidxglossaries

3. Run LATEX twice on your document. (As you would do to make a table of contents appear.) For example, click twice on the “typeset” or “build” or “PDFLATEX” button in your editor.

Complete example:

Option 2 (makeindex)

This option uses a CLI application called makeindex to sort the entries. This application comes with all modern TEX distributions, but it’s hard-coded for the non-extended Latin alphabet. It can’t correctly sort accent commands (such as \’ or \c) and fails with UTF-8 characters, especially for any sort values that start with a UTF-8 character (as it separates the octets resulting in an invalid file encoding). This process involves making LATEX write the glossary information to a temporary file which makeindex reads. Then makeindex writes a new file containing the code to typeset the glossary. Then \printglossary reads this file in on the next run.

This option works best if you want to sort entries according to the English alphabet and you don’t want to install Perl (or Java or you don’t want to use glossaries-extra). This method can also work with the restricted shell escape since makeindex is considered a trusted application. (So you should be able to use the automake package option provided the shell escape hasn’t been completely disabled.)

This method can form ranges in the number list but only accepts limited number formats: \arabic, \roman, \Roman, \alph and \Alph.

This option does not allow a mixture of sort methods. All glossaries must be sorted according to the same method: word/letter ordering or order of use or order of definition. If you need word ordering for one glossary and letter ordering for another you’ll have to explicitly call makeindex for each glossary type. (The glossaries-extra package allows a hybrid mix of Options 1 and 2 to provide word/letter ordering with Option 2 and order of use/definition with Option 1. See the glossaries-extra documentation for further details.)

1. If you want to use makeindex’s -g option you must change the quote character using \GlsSetQuote. For example:
   \GlsSetQuote{+}

   This must be used before \makeglossaries. Note that if you are using babel, the shorthands aren’t enabled until the start of the document, so you won’t be able to use the shorthands in definitions made in the preamble.

2. Add
   \makeglossaries

   to your preamble (before you start defining your entries, as described in §4 Defining Glossary Entries).

3. Put
   \printglossary

   where you want your list of entries to appear (described in §10 Displaying a glossary). Alternatively, to display all glossaries use the iterative command:

   \printglossaries

4. Run LATEX on your document. This creates files with the extensions .glo and .ist (for example, if your LATEX document is called myDoc.tex, then you’ll have two extra files called myDoc.glo and myDoc.ist). If you look at your document at this point, you won’t see the glossary as it hasn’t been created yet. (If you use glossaries-extra you’ll see the section heading and some boilerplate text.)
5. Run makeindex with the .glo file as the input file and the .ist file as the style so that it creates an output file with the extension .gls. If you have access to a terminal or a command prompt (for example, the MSDOS command prompt for Windows users or the bash console for Unix-like users) then you need to run the command:
   makeindex -s myDoc.ist -o myDoc.gls myDoc.glo

   (Replace myDoc with the base name of your LATEX document file. Avoid spaces in the file name if possible.) If you don’t know how to use the command prompt, then you can probably access makeindex via your text editor, but each editor has a different method of doing this, so I can’t give a general description. You will have to check your editor’s manual. The simplest approach is to use arara and add the following comment lines to the start of your document:

   % arara: pdflatex
   % arara: makeglossaries
   % arara: pdflatex
   (Replace makeglossaries with makeglossaries-lite if you don’t have Perl installed.)

   The default sort is word order (“sea lion” comes before “seal”). If you want letter ordering you need to add the -l switch:

   makeindex -l -s myDoc.ist -o myDoc.gls myDoc.glo

   (See §1.5.4 Using makeindex explicitly (Option 2) for further details on using makeindex explicitly.) If you use makeglossaries or makeglossaries-lite then use the order=letter package option and the -l option will be added automatically.

6. Once you have successfully completed the previous step, you can now run LATEX on your document again. You’ll need to repeat the process if you have used the toc option (unless you’re using glossaries-extra) to ensure the section heading is added to the table of contents. You’ll also need to repeat the process if you have any cross-references which can’t be indexed until the glossary file has been created.

Complete example:

Option 3 (xindy)

This option uses a CLI application called xindy to sort the entries. This application is more flexible than makeindex and is able to sort extended Latin alphabets or non-Latin alphabets, however it does still have some limitations.

The xindy application comes with both TEX Live and MiKTEX, but since xindy is a Perl script, you will also need to install Perl, if you don’t already have it. In a similar way to Option 2, this option involves making LATEX write the glossary information to a temporary file which xindy reads. Then xindy writes a new file containing the code to typeset the glossary. Then \printglossary reads this file in on the next run.

This is the best option with just the base glossaries package if you want to sort according to a language other than English or if you want non-standard location lists, but it can require some setting up (see §11 Xindy (Option 3)). There are some problems with certain sort values:

• entries with the same sort value are merged by xindy into a single glossary line so you must make sure that each entry has a unique sort value;
• xindy forbids empty sort values;
• xindy automatically strips control sequences, the math-shift character $ and braces {} from the sort value, which is usually desired but this can cause the sort value to collapse to an empty string which xindy forbids.

In these problematic cases, you must set the sort field explicitly. For example:

All glossaries must be sorted according to the same method (word/letter ordering, order of use, or order of definition). (The glossaries-extra package allows a hybrid mix of Options 1 and 3 to provide word/letter ordering with Option 3 and order of use/definition with Option 1. See the glossaries-extra documentation for further details.)

1. Add the xindy option to the glossaries package option list:
   \usepackage[xindy]{glossaries}

   If you are using a non-Latin script you’ll also need to either switch off the creation of the number group:

   \usepackage[xindy={glsnumbers=false}]{glossaries}

   or use either \GlsSetXdyFirstLetterAfterDigits{⟨letter⟩} or \GlsSetXdyNumberGroupOrder {⟨spec⟩} to indicate where the number group should be placed (see §11 Xindy (Option 3)).

2. Add \makeglossaries to your preamble (before you start defining your entries, as described in §4 Defining Glossary Entries).
3. Run LATEX on your document. This creates files with the extensions .glo and .xdy (for example, if your LATEX document is called myDoc.tex, then you’ll have two extra files called myDoc.glo and myDoc.xdy). If you look at your document at this point, you won’t see the glossary as it hasn’t been created yet. (If you’re using the extension package glossaries-extra, you’ll see the section header and some boilerplate text.)
4. Run xindy with the .glo file as the input file and the .xdy file as a module so that it creates an output file with the extension .gls. You also need to set the language name and input encoding. If you have access to a terminal or a command prompt (for example, the MSDOS command prompt for Windows users or the bash console for Unix-like users) then you need to run the command (all on one line):
   xindy -L english -C utf8 -I xindy -M myDoc  
   -t myDoc.glg -o myDoc.gls myDoc.glo

   (Replace myDoc with the base name of your LATEX document file. Avoid spaces in the file name. If necessary, also replace english with the name of your language and utf8 with your input encoding, for example, -L german -C din5007-utf8.) Note that it’s much simpler to use makeglossaries instead:

   makeglossaries myDoc

   (Remember that xindy is a Perl script so if you can use xindy then you can also use makeglossaries, and if you don’t want to use makeglossaries because you don’t want to install Perl, then you can’t use xindy either.)

   If you don’t know how to use the command prompt, then you can probably access xindy or makeglossaries via your text editor, but each editor has a different method of doing this, so I can’t give a general description. You will have to check your editor’s manual. Again, a convenient method is to use arara and add the follow comment lines to the start of your document:

   % arara: pdflatex
   % arara: makeglossaries
   % arara: pdflatex

   The default sort is word order (“sea lion” comes before “seal”). If you want letter ordering you need to add the order=letter package option:

   \usepackage[xindy,order=letter]{glossaries}

   (and return to the previous step). This option is picked up by makeglossaries. If you are explicitly using xindy then you’ll need to add -M ord/letorder to the options list. See §1.5.3 Using xindy explicitly (Option 3) for further details on using xindy explicitly.

5. Once you have successfully completed the previous step, you can now run LATEX on your document again. As with the previous option, you may need to repeat the process to ensure the table of contents and cross-references are resolved.

Complete example:

Option 4 (bib2gls)

This option is only available with the extension package glossaries-extra. This method uses bib2gls to both fetch entry definitions from .bib files and to hierarchically sort and collate.

All entries must be provided in one or more .bib files. (See the bib2gls user manual for the required format.) The glossaries-extra package needs to be loaded with the record package option

or (equivalently)

(It’s possible to use a hybrid of this method and Options 2 or 3 with record=alsoindex but in general there is little need for this and it complicates the build process.)

Each resource set is loaded with \GlsXtrLoadResources[⟨options⟩]. For example:

You can have multiple resource commands.

The glossary is displayed using

Alternatively all glossaries can be displayed using the iterative command:

The document is build using:

If letter groups are required, you need the --group switch:

Unlike Options 2 and 3, this method doesn’t create a file containing the typeset glossary but simply determines which entries are needed for the document, their associated locations and (if required) their associated letter group. This option allows a mixture of sort methods. (For example, sorting by word order for one glossary and order of use for another or even sorting one block of the glossary differently to another block in the same glossary.)

This method supports Unicode and (with at least Java 8) uses the Common Locale Data Repository, which provides more extensive language support than xindy.^1.2 The locations in the number list may be in any format. If bib2gls can deduce a numerical value it will attempt to form ranges otherwise it will simply list the locations.

Complete example:

where entries.bib contains

See the bib2gls user manual for further details.

Option 5 (no sorting)

This option is only available with the extension package glossaries-extra. No indexing application is required. This method is best used with the package option sort=none.

There’s no “activation” command (such as \makeglossaries for Options 2 and 3).

All entries must be defined before the glossary is displayed (preferably in the preamble) in the required order, and child entries must be defined immediately after their parent entry if they must be kept together in the glossary

The glossary is displayed using

Alternatively all glossaries can be displayed using the iterative command:

This will display all defined entries, regardless of whether or not they have been used in the document. The number lists have to be set explicitly otherwise they won’t appear. Note that this uses the same command for displaying the glossary as Option 4. This is because bib2gls takes advantage of this method by defining the wanted entries in the required order and setting the locations (and letter group information, if required).

This just requires a single LATEX call

unless the glossary needs to appear in the table of contents, in which case a second run is required.

(Naturally if the document also contains citations, and so on, then additional steps are required. Similarly for all the other options above.)

Complete example:

See the glossaries-extra documentation for further details.

Top

1.2 Sample Documents

The glossaries package is provided with some sample documents that illustrate the various functions. These should be located in the samples subdirectory (folder) of the glossaries documentation directory. This location varies according to your operating system and TEX distribution. You can use texdoc to locate the main glossaries documentation. For example, in a terminal or command prompt, type:
texdoc -l glossaries

This should display a list of all the files in the glossaries documentation directory with their full pathnames. (The GUI version of texdoc may also provide you with the information.)

If you can’t find the sample files on your computer, they are also available from your nearest CTAN mirror at http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/glossaries/samples/.

The sample documents are listed below^1.3 If you prefer to use UTF-8 aware engines (xelatex or lualatex) remember that you’ll need to switch from fontenc & inputenc to fontspec where appropriate. The glossaries-extra package provides some additional sample files.

minimalgls.tex

This document is a minimal working example. You can test your installation using this file. To create the complete document you will need to do the following steps:

1. Run minimalgls.tex through LATEX either by typing
   latex minimalgls

   in a terminal or by using the relevant button or menu item in your text editor or front-end. This will create the required associated files but you will not see the glossary. If you use PDFLATEX you will also get warnings about non-existent references that look something like:

   pdfTeX warning (dest): name{glo:aca} has been  
   referenced but does not exist,  
   replaced by a fixed one

   These warnings may be ignored on the first run.

   If you get a Missing \begin{document} error, then it’s most likely that your version of xkeyval is out of date. Check the log file for a warning of that nature. If this is the case, you will need to update the xkeyval package.

2. If you have Perl installed, run makeglossaries on the document (§1.5 Generating the Associated Glossary Files). This can be done on a terminal by typing
   makeglossaries minimalgls

   otherwise do
   makeglossaries-lite minimalgls

   If for some reason you want to call makeindex explicitly, you can do this in a terminal by typing (all on one line):
   makeindex -s minimalgls.ist -t minimalgls.glg -o minimalgls.gls minimalgls.glo

   (See §1.5.4 Using makeindex explicitly (Option 2) for further details on using makeindex explicitly.)

   Note that if the file name contains spaces, you will need to use the double-quote character to delimit the name.

3. Run minimalgls.tex through LATEX again (as step 1)

You should now have a complete document. The number following each entry in the glossary is the location number. By default, this is the page number where the entry was referenced.

There are three other files that can be used as a minimal working example: mwe-gls.tex, mwe-acr.tex and mwe-acr-desc.tex.

sample-noidxapp.tex

This document illustrates how to use the glossaries package without an external indexing application (Option 1). To create the complete document, you need to do:
latex sample-noidxapp
latex sample-noidxapp

sample-noidxapp-utf8.tex

As the previous example, except that it uses the inputenc package. To create the complete document, you need to do:
latex sample-noidxapp-utf8
latex sample-noidxapp-utf8

sample4col.tex

This document illustrates a four column glossary where the entries have a symbol in addition to the name and description. To create the complete document, you need to do:
latex sample4col
makeglossaries sample4col
latex sample4col

or
latex sample4col
makeglossaries-lite sample4col
latex sample4col

The vertical gap between entries is the gap created at the start of each group. This can be suppressed using the nogroupskip package option.

sampleAcr.tex

This document has some sample abbreviations. It also adds the glossary to the table of contents, so an extra run through LATEX is required to ensure the document is up to date:
latex sampleAcr
makeglossaries sampleAcr
latex sampleAcr
latex sampleAcr

(or use makeglossaries-lite).

sampleAcrDesc.tex

This is similar to the previous example, except that the abbreviations have an associated description. As with the previous example, the glossary is added to the table of contents, so an extra run through LATEX is required:
latex sampleAcrDesc
makeglossaries sampleAcrDesc
latex sampleAcrDesc
latex sampleAcrDesc

sampleDesc.tex

This is similar to the previous example, except that it defines the abbreviations using \newglossaryentry instead of \newacronym. As with the previous example, the glossary is added to the table of contents, so an extra run through LATEX is required:
latex sampleDesc
makeglossaries sampleDesc
latex sampleDesc
latex sampleDesc

sampleCustomAcr.tex

This document has some sample abbreviations with a custom acronym style. It also adds the glossary to the table of contents, so an extra run through LATEX is required:
latex sampleCustomAcr
makeglossaries sampleCustomAcr
latex sampleCustomAcr
latex sampleCustomAcr

sampleFnAcrDesc.tex

This is similar to sampleAcrDesc.tex, except that it uses the footnote-sc-desc style. As with the previous example, the glossary is added to the table of contents, so an extra run through LATEX is required:
latex sampleFnAcrDesc
makeglossaries sampleFnAcrDesc
latex sampleFnAcrDesc
latex sampleFnAcrDesc

sample-FnDesc.tex

This example defines a custom display format that puts the description in a footnote on first use.
latex sample-FnDesc
makeglossaries sample-FnDesc
latex sample-FnDesc

sample-custom-acronym.tex

This document illustrates how to define your own acronym style if the predefined styles don’t suit your requirements.
latex sample-custom-acronym
makeglossaries sample-custom-acronym
latex sample-custom-acronym

sample-crossref.tex

This document illustrates how to cross-reference entries in the glossary.
latex sample-crossref
makeglossaries sample-crossref
latex sample-crossref

sample-dot-abbr.tex

This document illustrates how to use the post link hook to adjust the space factor after abbreviations.
latex sample-dot-abbr
makeglossaries sampledot-abbrf
latex sample-dot-abbr

sampleDB.tex

This document illustrates how to load external files containing the glossary definitions. It also illustrates how to define a new glossary type. This document has the number list suppressed and uses \glsaddall to add all the entries to the glossaries without referencing each one explicitly. To create the document do:
latex sampleDB
makeglossaries sampleDB
latex sampleDB

or
latex sampleDB
makeglossaries-lite sampleDB
latex sampleDB

The glossary definitions are stored in the accompanying files database1.tex and database2.tex. If for some reason you want to call makeindex explicitly you must have a separate call for each glossary:

1. Create the main glossary (all on one line):
   makeindex -s sampleDB.ist -t sampleDB.glg -o sampleDB.gls sampleDB.glo

2. Create the secondary glossary (all on one line):
   makeindex -s sampleDB.ist -t sampleDB.nlg -o sampleDB.not sampleDB.ntn

   Note that both makeglossaries and makeglossaries-lite do this all in one call, so they not only make it easier because you don’t need to supply all the switches and remember all the extensions but they also call makeindex the appropriate number of times.

sampleEq.tex

This document illustrates how to change the location to something other than the page number. In this case, the equation counter is used since all glossary entries appear inside an equation environment. To create the document do:
latex sampleEq
makeglossaries sampleEq
latex sampleEq

sampleEqPg.tex

This is similar to the previous example, but the number lists are a mixture of page numbers and equation numbers. This example adds the glossary to the table of contents, so an extra LATEX run is required:
latex sampleEqPg
makeglossaries sampleEqPg
latex sampleEqPg
latex sampleEqPg

sampleSec.tex

This document also illustrates how to change the location to something other than the page number. In this case, the section counter is used. This example adds the glossary to the table of contents, so an extra LATEX run is required:
latex sampleSec
makeglossaries sampleSec
latex sampleSec
latex sampleSec

sampleNtn.tex

This document illustrates how to create an additional glossary type. This example adds the glossary to the table of contents, so an extra LATEX run is required:
latex sampleNtn
makeglossaries sampleNtn
latex sampleNtn
latex sampleNtn

Note that if you want to call makeindex explicitly instead of using makeglossaries or makeglossaries-lite then you need to call makeindex twice:

1. Create the main glossary (all on one line):
   makeindex -s sampleNtn.ist -t sampleNtn.glg -o sampleNtn.gls sampleNtn.glo

2. Create the secondary glossary (all on one line):
   makeindex -s sampleNtn.ist -t sampleNtn.nlg -o sampleNtn.not sampleNtn.ntn

sample.tex

This document illustrates some of the basics, including how to create child entries that use the same name as the parent entry. This example adds the glossary to the table of contents and it also uses \glsrefentry, so an extra LATEX run is required:
latex sample
makeglossaries sample
latex sample
latex sample

You can see the difference between word and letter ordering if you substitute order=word with order=letter. (Note that this will only have an effect if you use makeglossaries or makeglossaries-lite. If you use makeindex explicitly, you will need to use the -l switch to indicate letter ordering.)

sample-inline.tex

This document is like sample.tex, above, but uses the inline glossary style to put the glossary in a footnote.

sampletree.tex

This document illustrates a hierarchical glossary structure where child entries have different names to their corresponding parent entry. To create the document do:
latex sampletree
makeglossaries sampletree
latex sampletree

sample-dual.tex

This document illustrates how to define an entry that both appears in the list of acronyms and in the main glossary. To create the document do:
latex sample-dual
makeglossaries sample-dual
latex sample-dual

sample-langdict.tex

This document illustrates how to use the glossaries package to create English to French and French to English dictionaries. To create the document do:
latex sample-langdict
makeglossaries sample-langdict
latex sample-langdict

samplexdy.tex

This document illustrates how to use the glossaries package with xindy instead of makeindex. The document uses UTF8 encoding (with the inputenc package). The encoding is picked up by makeglossaries. By default, this document will create a xindy style file called samplexdy.xdy, but if you uncomment the lines

\setStyleFile{samplexdy-mc}  
\noist  
\GlsSetXdyLanguage{}

it will set the style file to samplexdy-mc.xdy instead. This provides an additional letter group for entries starting with “Mc” or “Mac”. If you use makeglossaries or makeglossaries-lite, you don’t need to supply any additional information. If you don’t use makeglossaries, you will need to specify the required information. Note that if you set the style file to samplexdy-mc.xdy you must also specify \noist, otherwise the glossaries package will overwrite samplexdy-mc.xdy and you will lose the “Mc” letter group.

To create the document do:
latex samplexdy
makeglossaries samplexdy
latex samplexdy

If you don’t have Perl installed then you can’t use makeglossaries, but you also can’t use xindy! However, if for some reason you want to call xindy explicitly instead of using makeglossaries (or makeglossaries-lite):

• if you are using the default style file samplexdy.xdy, then do (no line breaks):
  xindy -L english -C utf8 -I xindy -M samplexdy -t samplexdy.glg -o samplexdy.gls samplexdy.glo

• if you are using samplexdy-mc.xdy, then do (no line breaks):
  xindy -I xindy -M samplexdy-mc -t samplexdy.glg -o samplexdy.gls samplexdy.glo

samplexdy2.tex

This document illustrates how to use the glossaries package where the location numbers don’t follow a standard format. This example will only work with xindy. To create the document do:
pdflatex samplexdy2
makeglossaries samplexdy2
pdflatex samplexdy2

The explicit xindy call is:
xindy -L english -C utf8 -I xindy -M samplexdy2 -t samplexdy2.glg -o samplexdy2.gls samplexdy2.glo

See §11.2 Locations and Number lists for further details.

samplexdy3.tex

This document is like samplexdy.tex but uses the command \Numberstring from the fmtcount package to format the page numbers.

sampleutf8.tex

This is another example that uses xindy. Unlike makeindex, xindy can cope with non-Latin characters. This document uses UTF8 encoding. To create the document do:
latex sampleutf8
makeglossaries sampleutf8
latex sampleutf8

The explicit xindy call is (no line breaks):
xindy -L english -C utf8 -I xindy -M sampleutf8 -t sampleutf8.glg -o sampleutf8.gls sampleutf8.glo

If you remove the xindy option from sampleutf8.tex and do:
latex sampleutf8
makeglossaries sampleutf8
latex sampleutf8

or
latex sampleutf8
makeglossaries-lite sampleutf8
latex sampleutf8

you will see that the entries that start with an extended Latin character now appear in the symbols group, and the word “manœuvre” is now after “manor” instead of before it. If you want to explicitly call makeindex (no line breaks):
makeindex -s sampleutf8.ist -t sampleutf8.glg -o sampleutf8.gls sampleutf8.glo

sample-index.tex

This document uses the glossaries package to create both a glossary and an index. This requires two makeglossaries (or makeglossaries-lite) calls to ensure the document is up to date:
latex sample-index
makeglossaries sample-index
latex sample-index
makeglossaries sample-index
latex sample-index

sample-newkeys.tex

This document illustrates how add custom keys (using \glsaddkey).

sample-storage-abbr.tex

This document illustrates how add custom storage keys (using \glsaddstoragekey).

sample-storage-abbr-desc.tex

An extension of the previous example where the user needs to provide a description.

sample-chap-hyperfirst.tex

This document illustrates how to add a custom key using \glsaddstoragekey and hook into the \gls-like and \glstext-like mechanism used to determine whether or not to hyperlink an entry.

sample-font-abbr.tex

This document illustrates how to different fonts for abbreviations within the style.

sample-numberlist.tex

This document illustrates how to reference the number list in the document text. This requires an additional LATEX run:
latex sample-numberlist
makeglossaries sample-numberlist
latex sample-numberlist
latex sample-numberlist

samplePeople.tex

This document illustrates how you can hook into the standard sort mechanism to adjust the way the sort key is set. This requires an additional run to ensure the table of contents is up-to-date:
latex samplePeople
makeglossaries samplePeople
latex samplePeople
latex samplePeople

sampleSort.tex

This is another document that illustrates how to hook into the standard sort mechanism. An additional run is required to ensure the table of contents is up-to-date:
latex sampleSort
makeglossaries sampleSort
latex sampleSort
latex sampleSort

sample-nomathhyper.tex

This document illustrates how to selectively enable and disable entry hyperlinks in \glsentryfmt.

sample-entryfmt.tex

This document illustrates how to change the way an entry is displayed in the text.

sample-prefix.tex

This document illustrates the use of the glossaries-prefix package. An additional run is required to ensure the table of contents is up-to-date:
latex sample-prefix
makeglossaries sample-prefix
latex sample-prefix
latex sample-prefix

sampleaccsupp.tex

This document uses the experimental glossaries-accsupp package. The symbol is set to the replacement text. Note that some PDF viewers don’t use the accessibility support. Information about the glossaries-accsupp package can be found in §18 Accessibility Support.

sample-ignored.tex

This document defines an ignored glossary for common terms that don’t need a definition.

sample-entrycount.tex

This document uses \glsenableentrycount and \cgls (described in §14.1 Counting the Number of Times an Entry has been Used (First Use Flag Unset)) so that acronyms only used once don’t appear in the list of acronyms.

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1.3 Dummy Entries for Testing

In addition to the sample files described above, glossaries also provides some files containing lorum ipsum dummy entries. These are provided for testing purposes and are on TEX’s path (in tex/latex/glossaries/test-entries) so they can be included via \input or \loadglsentries. The files are as follows:

example-glossaries-brief.tex

These entries all have brief descriptions. For example:

\newglossaryentry{lorem}{name={lorem},description={ipsum}}

example-glossaries-long.tex

These entries all have long descriptions. For example:

\newglossaryentry{loremipsum}{name={lorem ipsum},  
description={dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing  
elit. Ut purus elit, vestibulum ut, placerat ac,  
adipiscing vitae, felis. Curabitur dictum gravida  
mauris.}}

example-glossaries-multipar.tex

These entries all have multi-paragraph descriptions.

example-glossaries-symbols.tex

These entries all use the symbol key. For example:

\newglossaryentry{alpha}{name={alpha},  
symbol={\ensuremath{\alpha}},  
description={Quisque ullamcorper placerat ipsum.}}

example-glossaries-symbolnames.tex

Similar to the previous file but the symbol key isn’t used. Instead the symbol is stored in the name key. For example:

\newglossaryentry{sym.alpha}{sort={alpha},  
name={\ensuremath{\alpha}},  
description={Quisque ullamcorper placerat ipsum.}}

example-glossaries-images.tex

These entries use the user1 key to store the name of an image file. (The images are provided by the mwe package and should be on TEX’s path.) One entry doesn’t have an associated image to help test for a missing key.

example-glossaries-acronym.tex

These entries are all abbreviations. For example:

\newacronym[type=\glsdefaulttype]{lid}{LID}{lorem ipsum  
dolor}

example-glossaries-acronym-desc.tex

These entries are all abbreviations that use the description key. For example:

\newacronym[type=\glsdefaulttype,  
  description={fringilla a, euismod sodales,  
  sollicitudin vel, wisi}]{ndl}{NDL}{nam dui ligula}

example-glossaries-acronyms-lang.tex

These entries are all abbreviations, where some of them have a translation supplied in the user1 key. For example:

\newacronym[type=\glsdefaulttype,user1={love itself}]  
 {li}{LI}{lorem ipsum}

example-glossaries-parent.tex

These are hierarchical entries where the child entries use the name key. For example:

\newglossaryentry{sedmattis}{name={sed mattis},  
description={erat sit amet}  
\newglossaryentry{gravida}{parent={sedmattis},  
  name={gravida},description={malesuada}}

example-glossaries-childnoname.tex

These are hierarchical entries where the child entries don’t use the name key. For example:

\newglossaryentry{scelerisque}{name={scelerisque},  
  description={at}}

example-glossaries-cite.tex

These entries use the user1 key to store a citation key (or comma-separated list of citation keys). The citations are defined in xampl.bib, which should be available on all modern TEX distributions. One entry doesn’t have an associated citation to help test for a missing key. For example:

\newglossaryentry{fusce}{name={fusce},  
description={suscipit cursus sem},user1={article-minimal}}

example-glossaries-url.tex

These entries use the user1 key to store an URL associated with the entry. For example:

\newglossaryentry{aenean-url}{name={aenean},  
 description={adipiscing auctor est},  
 user1={http://uk.tug.org/}}

The sample file glossary-lipsum-examples.tex in the doc/latex/glossaries/samples directory uses all these files. See also http://www.dickimaw-books.com/gallery/#glossaries. The glossaries-extra package provides additional test files.

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1.4 Multi-Lingual Support

As from version 1.17, the glossaries package can be used with xindy as well as makeindex. If you are writing in a language that uses an extended Latin alphabet or non-Latin alphabet it’s best to use Option 3 (xindy) or Option 4 (bib2gls) as makeindex (Option 2) is hard-coded for the non-extended Latin alphabet and Option 1 can performed limited ASCII comparisons.

This means that with Options 3 or 4 you are not restricted to the A, …, Z letter groups. If you want to use xindy, remember to use the xindy package option. For example:

If you want to use bib2gls, you need to use the record option with glossaries-extra and supply the definitions in .bib files. (See the bib2gls user manual for further details.)

With inputenc, if you use a non-Latin character (or other expandable) character at the start of an entry name, you must place it in a group, or it will cause a problem for commands that convert the first letter to upper case (e.g. \Gls). For example:

If you are using xindy or bib2gls, the application needs to know the encoding of the .tex file. This information is added to the .aux file and can be picked up by makeglossaries and bib2gls. If you use xindy explicitly instead of via makeglossaries, you may need to specify the encoding using the -C option. Read the xindy manual for further details of this option.

As from v4.24, if you are writing in German (for example, using the ngerman package^1.4 or babel with the ngerman package option), and you want to use makeindex’s -g option, you’ll need to change makeindex’s quote character using:

Note that ⟨character⟩ may not be one of ? (question mark), | (pipe) or ! (exclamation mark). For example:

This must be done before \makeglossaries and any entry definitions. It’s only applicable for makeindex. This option in conjunction with ngerman will also cause makeglossaries to use the -g switch when invoking makeindex.

In general, it’s best not to use babel’s shorthands in entry definitions. For example:

The ngerman package has the shorthands on in the preamble, so they can be used if \GlsSetQuote has changed the makeindex quote character. Example:

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1.4.1 Changing the Fixed Names

The fixed names are produced using the commands listed in table 1.2. If you aren’t using a language package such as babel or polyglossia that uses caption hooks, you can just redefine these commands as appropriate. If you are using babel or polyglossia, you need to use their caption hooks to change the defaults. See changing the words babel uses or read the babel or polyglossia documentation. If you have loaded babel, then glossaries will attempt to load translator, unless you have used the notranslate, translate=false or translate=babel package options. If the translator package is loaded, the translations are provided by dictionary files (for example, glossaries-dictionary-English.dict). See the translator package for advice on changing translations provided by translator dictionaries. If you can’t work out how to modify these dictionary definitions, try switching to babel’s interface using translate=babel:

and then use babel’s caption hook mechanism. Note that if you pass the language options directly to babel rather that using the document class options or otherwise passing the same options to translator, then translator won’t pick up the language and no dictionaries will be loaded and babel’s caption hooks will be used instead.

As from version 4.12, multilingual support is provided by separate language modules that need to be installed in addition to installing the glossaries package. You only need to install the modules for the languages that you require. If the language module has an unmaintained status, you can volunteer to take over the maintenance by contacting me at http://www.dickimaw-books.com/contact.html. The translator dictionary files for glossaries are now provided by the appropriate language module. For further details about information specific to a given language, please see the documentation for that language module.

Examples of use:

• Using babel and translator:
  \documentclass[english,french]{article}  
  \usepackage{babel}  
  \usepackage{glossaries}

  (translator is automatically loaded).

• Using babel:
  \documentclass[english,french]{article}  
  \usepackage{babel}  
  \usepackage[translate=babel]{glossaries}

  (translator isn’t loaded).

• Using polyglossia:
  \documentclass{article}  
  \usepackage{polyglossia}  
  \setmainlanguage{english}  
  \usepackage{glossaries}

Due to the varied nature of glossaries, it’s likely that the predefined translations may not be appropriate. If you are using the babel package and the glossaries package option translate=babel, you need to be familiar with the advice given in changing the words babel uses. If you are using the translator package, then you can provide your own dictionary with the necessary modifications (using \deftranslation) and load it using \usedictionary. If you simply want to change the title of a glossary, you can use the title key in commands like \printglossary (but not the iterative commands like \printglossaries).

Your custom dictionary doesn’t have to be just a translation from English to another language. You may prefer to have a dictionary for a particular type of document. For example, suppose your institution’s in-house reports have to have the glossary labelled as “Nomenclature” and the page list should be labelled “Location”, then you can create a file called, say,

that contains the following:

You can now load it using:

(Make sure that myinstitute-glossaries-dictionary-English.dict can be found by TEX.) If you want to share your custom dictionary, you can upload it to CTAN.

If you are using babel and don’t want to use the translator interface, you can use the package option translate=babel. For example:

Note that xindy and bib2gls provide much better multi-lingual support than makeindex, so I recommend that you use Options 3 or 4 if you have glossary entries that contain non-Latin characters. See §11 Xindy (Option 3) for further details on xindy, and see the bib2gls user manual for further details of that application.

Creating a New Language Module

The glossaries package now uses the tracklang package to determine which language modules need to be loaded. If you want to create a new language module, you should first read the tracklang documentation.

To create a new language module, you need to at least create two files: glossaries-⟨lang⟩.ldf and glossaries-dictionary-⟨Lang⟩.dict where ⟨lang⟩ is the root language name (for example, english) and ⟨Lang⟩ is the language name used by translator (for example, English).

Here’s an example of glossaries-dictionary-English.dict:

You can use this as a template for your dictionary file. Change English to the translator name for your language (so that it matches the file name glossaries-dictionary-⟨Lang⟩.dict) and, for each \providetranslation, change the second argument to the appropriate translation.

Here’s an example of glossaries-english.ldf:

This is a somewhat longer file, but again you can use it as a template. Replace English with the translator language label ⟨Lang⟩ used for the dictionary file and replace english with the root language name ⟨lang⟩. Within the definition of \glossariescaptions⟨lang⟩, replace the English text (such as “Glossaries”) with the appropriate translation.

Note: the suffixes used to generate the plural forms when the plural hasn’t been specified are given by \glspluralsuffix (for general entries) and \glsupacrpluralsuffix for acronyms where the suffix needs to be set using \glstextup to counteract the effects of \textsc and \glsacrpluralsuffix for other acronym styles. There’s no guarantee when these commands will be expanded. They may be expanded on definition or they may be expanded on use, depending on the glossaries configuration.

If you want to add a regional variation, create a file called glossaries-⟨iso lang⟩-⟨iso country⟩.ldf, where ⟨iso lang⟩ is the ISO language code and ⟨iso country⟩ is the ISO country code. For example, glossaries-en-GB.ldf. This file can load the root language file and make the appropriate changes, for example:

If the translations includes non-Latin characters, it’s necessary to provide code that’s independent of the input encoding. Remember that while some users may use UTF-8, others may use Latin-1 or any other supported encoding, but while users won’t appreciate you enforcing your preference on them, it’s useful to provide a UTF-8 version for XeLaTeX users.

The glossaries-irish.ldf file provides this as follows:

(Again you can use this as a template. Replace irish with your root language label and Irish with the translator dictionary label.)

There are now two extra files: glossaries-irish-noenc.ldf and glossaries-irish-utf8.ldf.

These both define \glossariescaptionsirish but the *-noenc.ldf uses LATEX accent commands:

whereas the *-utf8.ldf replaces the accent commands with the appropriate UTF-8 characters.

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1.5 Generating the Associated Glossary Files

If this section seriously confuses you, and you can’t work out how to run external tools like makeglossaries or makeindex, you can try using the automake package option, described in §2.4 Sorting Options, but you will need TEX’s shell escape enabled.

In order to generate a sorted glossary with compact number lists, it is necessary to use an external indexing application as an intermediate step (unless you have chosen Option 1, which uses TEX to do the sorting or Option 5, which doesn’t perform any sorting). It is this application that creates the file containing the code required to typeset the glossary. If this step is omitted, the glossaries will not appear in your document. The two indexing applications that are most commonly used with LATEX are makeindex and xindy. As from version 1.17, the glossaries package can be used with either of these applications. Previous versions were designed to be used with makeindex only. With the glossaries-extra package, you can also use bib2gls as the indexing application. (See the glossaries-extra and bib2gls user manuals for further details.) Note that xindy and bib2gls have much better multi-lingual support than makeindex, so xindy or bib2gls are recommended if you’re not writing in English. Commands that only have an effect when xindy is used are described in §11 Xindy (Option 3).

The glossaries package comes with the Perl script makeglossaries which will run makeindex or xindy on all the glossary files using a customized style file (which is created by \makeglossaries). See §1.5.1 Using the makeglossaries Perl Script for further details. Perl is stable, cross-platform, open source software that is used by a number of TEX-related applications (including xindy and latexmk). Most Unix-like operating systems come with a Perl interpreter. TEX Live also comes with a Perl interpreter. MiKTEX doesn’t come with a Perl interpreter so if you are a Windows MiKTEX user you will need to install Perl if you want to use makeglossaries or xindy. Further information is available at http://www.perl.org/about.html and MiKTeX and Perl scripts (and one Python script).

The advantages of using makeglossaries:

• It automatically detects whether to use makeindex or xindy and sets the relevant application switches.
• One call of makeglossaries will run makeindex/xindy for each glossary type.
• If things go wrong, makeglossaries will scan the messages from makeindex or xindy and attempt to diagnose the problem in relation to the glossaries package. This will hopefully provide more helpful messages in some cases. If it can’t diagnose the problem, you will have to read the relevant transcript file and see if you can work it out from the makeindex or xindy messages.
• If makeindex warns about multiple encap values, makeglossaries will detect this and attempt to correct the problem.^1.5 This correction is only provided by makeglossaries when makeindex is used since xindy uses the order of the attributes list to determine which format should take precedence. (See \GlsAddXdyAttribute in §11.2 Locations and Number lists.)

As from version 4.16, the glossaries package also comes with a Lua script called makeglossaries-lite. This is a trimmed-down alternative to the makeglossaries Perl script. It doesn’t have some of the options that the Perl version has and it doesn’t attempt to diagnose any problems, but since modern TEX distributions come with LuaTEX (and therefore have a Lua interpreter) you don’t need to install anything else in order to use makeglossaries-lite so it’s an alternative to makeglossaries if you want to use Option 2 (makeindex).

If things go wrong and you can’t work out why your glossaries aren’t being generated correctly, you can use makeglossariesgui as a diagnostic tool. Once you’ve fixed the problem, you can then go back to using makeglossaries or makeglossaries-lite.

Whilst I strongly recommended that you use the makeglossaries Perl script or the makeglossaries-lite Lua script, it is possible to use the glossaries package without using those applications. However, note that some commands and package options have no effect if you explicitly run makeindex/xindy. These are listed in table 1.3.

Note that if any of your entries use an entry that is not referenced outside the glossary, you will need to do an additional makeglossaries, makeindex or xindy run, as appropriate. For example, suppose you have defined the following entries:^1.6

and suppose you have \gls{citrusfruit} in your document but don’t reference the orange entry, then the orange entry won’t appear in your glossary until you first create the glossary and then do another run of makeglossaries, makeindex or xindy. For example, if the document is called myDoc.tex, then you must do:
latex myDoc
makeglossaries myDoc
latex myDoc
makeglossaries myDoc
latex myDoc

(Note that if you use glossaries-extra, this will be done automatically for you if the indexcrossrefs feature is enabled. See the glossaries-extra user guide for further details.)

Likewise, an additional makeglossaries and LATEX run may be required if the document pages shift with re-runs. For example, if the page numbering is not reset after the table of contents, the insertion of the table of contents on the second LATEX run may push glossary entries across page boundaries, which means that the number lists in the glossary may need updating.

The examples in this document assume that you are accessing makeglossaries, xindy or makeindex via a terminal. Windows users can use the MSDOS Prompt which is usually accessed via the Start->All Programs menu or Start->All Programs->Accessories menu.

Alternatively, your text editor may have the facility to create a function that will call the required application. See Incorporating makeglossaries or makeglossaries-lite or bib2gls into the document build.

If any problems occur, remember to check the transcript files (e.g. .glg or .alg) for messages.

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1.5.1 Using the makeglossaries Perl Script

The makeglossaries script picks up the relevant information from the auxiliary (.aux) file and will either call xindy or makeindex, depending on the supplied information. Therefore, you only need to pass the document’s name without the extension to makeglossaries. For example, if your document is called myDoc.tex, type the following in your terminal:
latex myDoc
makeglossaries myDoc
latex myDoc

You may need to explicitly load makeglossaries into Perl:
perl makeglossaries myDoc

Windows users: TEX Live on Windows has its own internal Perl interpreter and provides makeglossaries.exe as a convenient wrapper for the makeglossaries Perl script. MiKTeX also provides a wrapper makeglossaries.exe but doesn’t provide a Perl interpreter, which is still required even if you run MiKTeX’s makeglossaries.exe, so with MiKTeX you’ll need to install Perl.^1.7 There’s more information about this at http://tex.stackexchange.com/q/158796/19862 on the TeX.SX site.

The makeglossaries script attempts to fork the makeindex/xindy process using open() on the piped redirection 2>&1 | and parses the processor output to help diagnose problems. If this method fails makeglossaries will print an “Unable to fork” warning and will retry without redirection. If you run makeglossaries on an operating system that doesn’t support this form of redirection, then you can use the -Q switch to suppress this warning or you can use the -k switch to make makeglossaries automatically use the fallback method without attempting the redirection. Without this redirection, the -q (quiet) switch doesn’t work as well.

You can specify in which directory the .aux, .glo etc files are located using the -d switch. For example:
pdflatex -output-directory myTmpDir myDoc
makeglossaries -d myTmpDir myDoc

Note that makeglossaries assumes by default that makeindex/xindy is on your operating system’s path. If this isn’t the case, you can specify the full pathname using -m ⟨path/to/makeindex⟩ for makeindex or -x ⟨path/to/xindy⟩ for xindy.

As from makeglossaries v2.18, if you are using makeindex, there’s a check for makeindex’s multiple encap warning. This is where different encap values (location formats) are used on the same location for the same entry. For example:

If you explicitly use makeindex, this will cause a warning and the location list will be “1, 1”. That is, the page number will be repeated with each format. As from v2.18, makeglossaries will check for this warning and, if found, will attempt to correct the problem by removing duplicate locations and retrying. There’s no similar check for xindy as xindy won’t produce any warning and will simply discard duplicates.

The makeglossaries script contains POD (Plain Old Documentation). If you want, you can create a man page for makeglossaries using pod2man and move the resulting file onto the man path. Alternatively do makeglossaries --help for a list of all options or makeglossaries --version for the version number.

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1.5.2 Using the makeglossaries-lite Lua Script

The Lua alternative to the makeglossaries Perl script requires a Lua interpreter, which should already be available if you have a modern TEX distribution that includes LuaTEX. Lua is a light-weight, cross-platform scripting language, but because it’s light-weight it doesn’t have the full-functionality of heavy-weight scripting languages, such as Perl. The makeglossaries-lite script is therefore limited by this and some of the options available to the makeglossaries Perl script aren’t available here. (In particular the -d option.)

The makeglossaries-lite script can be invoked in the same way as makeglossaries. For example, if your document is called myDoc.tex, then do
makeglossaries-lite.lua myDoc

or
makeglossaries-lite myDoc

Some of the options available with makeglossaries are also available with makeglossaries-lite. For a complete list of available options, do
makeglossaries-lite.lua --help

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1.5.3 Using xindy explicitly (Option 3)

Xindy comes with TEX Live. It has also been added to MikTEX, but if you don’t have it installed, see How to use Xindy with MikTeX on TEX on StackExchange.

If you want to use xindy to process the glossary files, you must make sure you have used the xindy package option:

This is required regardless of whether you use xindy explicitly or whether it’s called implicitly via applications such as makeglossaries. This causes the glossary entries to be written in raw xindy format, so you need to use -I xindy not -I tex.

To run xindy type the following in your terminal (all on one line):
xindy -L ⟨language⟩ -C ⟨encoding⟩ -I xindy -M ⟨style⟩ -t ⟨base⟩.glg -o ⟨base⟩.gls ⟨base⟩.glo

where ⟨language⟩ is the required language name, ⟨encoding⟩ is the encoding, ⟨base⟩ is the name of the document without the .tex extension and ⟨style⟩ is the name of the xindy style file without the .xdy extension. The default name for this style file is ⟨base⟩.xdy but can be changed via \setStyleFile{⟨style⟩}. You may need to specify the full path name depending on the current working directory. If any of the file names contain spaces, you must delimit them using double-quotes.

For example, if your document is called myDoc.tex and you are using UTF8 encoding in English, then type the following in your terminal:
xindy -L english -C utf8 -I xindy -M myDoc -t myDoc.glg -o myDoc.gls myDoc.glo

Note that this just creates the main glossary. You need to do the same for each of the other glossaries (including the list of acronyms if you have used the acronym package option), substituting .glg, .gls and .glo with the relevant extensions. For example, if you have used the acronym package option, then you would need to do:
xindy -L english -C utf8 -I xindy -M myDoc -t myDoc.alg -o myDoc.acr myDoc.acn

For additional glossaries, the extensions are those supplied when you created the glossary with \newglossary.

Note that if you use makeglossaries instead, you can replace all those calls to xindy with just one call to makeglossaries:
makeglossaries myDoc

Note also that some commands and package options have no effect if you use xindy explicitly instead of using makeglossaries. These are listed in table 1.3.

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1.5.4 Using makeindex explicitly (Option 2)

If you want to use makeindex explicitly, you must make sure that you haven’t used the xindy package option or the glossary entries will be written in the wrong format. To run makeindex, type the following in your terminal:
makeindex -s ⟨style⟩.ist -t ⟨base⟩.glg -o ⟨base⟩.gls ⟨base⟩.glo

where ⟨base⟩ is the name of your document without the .tex extension and ⟨style⟩.ist is the name of the makeindex style file. By default, this is ⟨base⟩.ist, but may be changed via \setStyleFile{⟨style⟩}. Note that there are other options, such as -l (letter ordering). See the makeindex manual for further details.

For example, if your document is called myDoc.tex, then type the following at the terminal:
makeindex -s myDoc.ist -t myDoc.glg -o myDoc.gls myDoc.glo

Note that this only creates the main glossary. If you have additional glossaries (for example, if you have used the acronym package option) then you must call makeindex for each glossary, substituting .glg, .gls and .glo with the relevant extensions. For example, if you have used the acronym package option, then you need to type the following in your terminal:
makeindex -s myDoc.ist -t myDoc.alg -o myDoc.acr myDoc.acn

For additional glossaries, the extensions are those supplied when you created the glossary with \newglossary.

Note that if you use makeglossaries instead, you can replace all those calls to makeindex with just one call to makeglossaries:
makeglossaries myDoc

Note also that some commands and package options have no effect if you use makeindex explicitly instead of using makeglossaries. These are listed in table 1.3.

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1.5.5 Note to Front-End and Script Developers

The information needed to determine whether to use xindy or makeindex and the information needed to call those applications is stored in the auxiliary file. This information can be gathered by a front-end, editor or script to make the glossaries where appropriate. This section describes how the information is stored in the auxiliary file.

The file extensions used by each defined glossary are given by

where ⟨in-ext⟩ is the extension of the indexing application’s input file (the output file from the glossaries package’s point of view), ⟨out-ext⟩ is the extension of the indexing application’s output file (the input file from the glossaries package’s point of view) and ⟨log⟩ is the extension of the indexing application’s transcript file. The label for the glossary is also given for information purposes only, but is not required by the indexing applications. For example, the information for the default main glossary is written as:

The indexing application’s style file is specified by

The file extension indicates whether to use makeindex (.ist) or xindy (.xdy). Note that the glossary information is formatted differently depending on which indexing application is supposed to be used, so it’s important to call the correct one.

Word or letter ordering is specified by:

where ⟨order⟩ can be either word or letter.

If xindy should be used, the language and code page for each glossary is specified by

where ⟨label⟩ identifies the glossary, ⟨language⟩ is the root language (e.g. english) and ⟨code⟩ is the encoding (e.g. utf8). These commands are omitted if makeindex should be used.

If Option 1 has been used, the .aux file will contain

for every time an entry has been referenced. If Option 4 has been used, the .aux file will contain one or more instances of

2. Package Options

This section describes the available glossaries package options. You may omit the =true for boolean options. (For example, acronym is equivalent to acronym=true). The glossaries-extra package has additional options described in the glossaries-extra manual.

Top

2.1 General Options

nowarn

This suppresses all warnings generated by the glossaries package. Don’t use this option if you’re new to using glossaries as the warnings are designed to help detect common mistakes (such as forgetting to use \makeglossaries). Note that the debug=true and debug=showtargets will override this option.

nolangwarn

This suppresses the warning generated by a missing language module.

noredefwarn

If you load glossaries with a class or another package that already defines glossary related commands, by default glossaries will warn you that it’s redefining those commands. If you are aware of the consequences of using glossaries with that class or package and you don’t want to be warned about it, use this option to suppress those warnings. Other warnings will still be issued unless you use the nowarn option described above.

debug

Introduced in version 4.24. The default setting is debug=false. This was a boolean option but as from v4.32 it now accepts the values: false, true and showtargets. If no value is given, debug=true is assumed. Both debug=true and debug=showtargets switch on the debug mode (and will automatically cancel the nowarn option). The debug=showtargets option will additionally use

---

\glsshowtarget  \glsshowtarget{⟨target name⟩}

---

to show the hypertarget or hyperlink name in the margin when \glsdohypertarget is used by commands like \glstarget and when \glsdohyperlink is used by commands like \gls. This puts the information in the margin using \marginpar unless math mode or inner mode are detected, in which case it puts the information in line enclosed by square brackets. The glossaries-extra package provides an additional setting that may be used to show where the indexing is occurring. See the glossaries-extra manual for further details.

The purpose of the debug mode can be demonstrated with the following example document:

\documentclass{article}  
\usepackage{glossaries}  
\newglossaryentry{sample1}{name={sample1},  
  description={example}}  
\newglossaryentry{sample2}{name={sample2},  
  description={example}}  
\glsadd{sample2}  
\makeglossaries  
\begin{document}  
\gls{sample1}.  
\printglossaries  
\end{document}

In this case, only the sample1 entry has been indexed, even though \glsadd{sample2} appears in the source code. This is because \glsadd{sample2} has been used before the associated file is opened by \makeglossaries. Since the file isn’t open yet, the information can’t be written to it, which is why the sample2 entry doesn’t appear in the glossary.

This situation doesn’t cause any errors or warnings as it’s perfectly legitimate for a user to want to use glossaries to format the entries (e.g. abbreviation expansion) but not display any lists of terms, abbreviations, symbols etc. Without \makeglossaries the indexing is suppressed but, other than that, commands like \gls behave as usual. It’s also possible that the user may want to temporarily comment out \makeglossaries in order to suppress the indexing while working on a draft version to speed compilation. Therefore \makeglossaries can’t be used to enable \newglossaryentry and \glsadd. They must be enabled by default. (It does, however, enable the see key as that’s a more common problem. See below.)

The debug mode, enabled with the debug option,

\usepackage[debug]{glossaries}

will write information to the log file when the indexing can’t occur because the associated file isn’t open. The message is written in the form

Package glossaries Info: wrglossary(⟨type⟩)(⟨text⟩) on input line ⟨line number⟩.

where ⟨type⟩ is the glossary label and ⟨text⟩ is the line of text that would’ve been written to the associated file if it had been open. So if any entries haven’t appeared in the glossary but you’re sure you used commands like \glsadd or \glsaddall, try switching on the debug option and see if any information has been written to the log file.

seenoindex

Introduced in version 4.24, this option may take one of three values: error, warn or ignore. The see key automatically indexes the cross-referenced entry using \glsadd. This means that it suffers from the same problem as the above. If used before the relevant glossary file has been opened, the indexing can’t be performed. Since this is easy to miss, the glossaries package by default issues an error message if the see key is used before \makeglossaries. This option allows you to change the error into just a warning (seenoindex=warn) or ignore it (seenoindex=ignore) if, for example, you want to temporarily comment out \makeglossaries to speed up the compilation of a draft document by omitting the indexing.

nomain

This suppresses the creation of the main glossary and associated .glo file, if unrequired. Note that if you use this option, you must create another glossary in which to put all your entries (either via the acronym (or acronyms) package option described in §2.5 Acronym Options or via the symbols, numbers or index options described in §2.6 Other Options or via \newglossary described in §12 Defining New Glossaries).

If you don’t use the main glossary and you don’t use this option, makeglossaries will produce a warning.

Warning: File 'filename.glo' is empty.
Have you used any entries defined in glossary
'main'?
Remember to use package option 'nomain' if
you don't want to use the main glossary.

If you did actually want to use the main glossary and you see this warning, check that you have referenced the entries in that glossary via commands such as \gls.

sanitizesort

This is a boolean option that determines whether or not to sanitize the sort value when writing to the external glossary file. For example, suppose you define an entry as follows:

\newglossaryentry{hash}{name={\#},sort={#},  
 description={hash symbol}}

The sort value (#) must be sanitized before writing it to the glossary file, otherwise LATEX will try to interpret it as a parameter reference. If, on the other hand, you want the sort value expanded, you need to switch off the sanitization. For example, suppose you do:

\newcommand{\mysortvalue}{AAA}  
\newglossaryentry{sample}{%  
  name={sample},  
  sort={\mysortvalue},  
  description={an example}}

and you actually want \mysortvalue expanded, so that the entry is sorted according to AAA, then use the package option sanitizesort=false.

The default for Options 2 and 3 is sanitizesort=true, and the default for Option 1 is sanitizesort=false.

esclocations

This is a boolean option. (The default is esclocations=true, but \makenoidxglossaries changes it to esclocations=false.) Both makeindex and xindy are fussy about the location formats (makeindex more so than xindy) so the glossaries package tries to ensure that special characters are escaped and allows for the location to be substituted for a format that’s more acceptable to the indexing application. This requires a bit of trickery to circumvent the problem posed by TEX’s asynchronous output routine, which can go wrong and also adds to the complexity of the document build.

If you’re sure that your locations will always expand to an acceptable format (or you’re prepared to post-process the glossary file before passing it to the relevant indexing application) then use esclocations=false to avoid the complex escaping of location values. (See “Writing information to associated files” in the documented code for further details.)

savewrites

This is a boolean option to minimise the number of write registers used by the glossaries package. (Default is savewrites=false.) There are only a limited number of write registers, and if you have a large number of glossaries or if you are using a class or other packages that create a lot of external files, you may exceed the maximum number of available registers. If savewrites is set, the glossary information will be stored in token registers until the end of the document when they will be written to the external files.

This option can significantly slow document compilation and may cause the indexing to fail. Page numbers in the number list will be incorrect on page boundaries due to TEX’s asynchronous output routine. As an alternative, you can use the scrwfile package (part of the KOMA-Script bundle) and not use this option.

You can also reduce the number of write registers by using Options 1 or 4 or by ensuring you define all your glossary entries in the preamble.

If you want to use TEX’s \write18 mechanism to call makeindex or xindy from your document and use savewrites, you must create the external files with \glswritefiles before you call makeindex/xindy. Also set \glswritefiles to nothing or \relax before the end of the document to avoid rewriting the files. For example:

\glswritefiles  
\write18{makeindex -s \istfilename\space  
-t \jobname.glg -o \jobname.gls \jobname}  
\let\glswritefiles\relax

In general, this package option is best avoided.

translate

This can take the following values:

translate=true

If babel has been loaded and the translator package is installed, translator will be loaded and the translations will be provided by the translator package interface. You can modify the translations by providing your own dictionary. If the translator package isn’t installed and babel is loaded, the glossaries-babel package will be loaded and the translations will be provided using babel’s \addto\caption⟨language⟩ mechanism. If polyglossia has been loaded, glossaries-polyglossia will be loaded.

translate=false

Don’t provide translations, even if babel or polyglossia has been loaded. (Note that babel provides the command \glossaryname so that will still be translated if you have loaded babel.)

translate=babel

Don’t load the translator package. Instead load glossaries-babel.

I recommend you use translate=babel if you have any problems with the translations or with PDF bookmarks, but to maintain backward compatibility, if babel has been loaded the default is translate=true.

If translate is specified without a value, translate=true is assumed. If translate isn’t specified, translate=true is assumed if babel, polyglossia or translator have been loaded. Otherwise translate=false is assumed.

See §1.4.1 Changing the Fixed Names for further details.

notranslate

This is equivalent to translate=false and may be passed via the document class options.

nohypertypes

Use this option if you have multiple glossaries and you want to suppress the entry hyperlinks for a particular glossary or glossaries. The value of this option should be a comma-separated list of glossary types where \gls etc shouldn’t have hyperlinks by default. Make sure you enclose the value in braces if it contains any commas. Example:

\usepackage[acronym,nohypertypes={acronym,notation}]  
  {glossaries}  
\newglossary[nlg]{notation}{not}{ntn}{Notation}

The values must be fully expanded, so don’t try nohypertypes=\acronymtype. You may also use

---

\GlsDeclareNoHyperList{⟨list⟩}

---

instead or additionally. See §6 Links to Glossary Entries for further details.

hyperfirst

This is a boolean option that specifies whether each term has a hyperlink on first use. The default is hyperfirst=true (terms on first use have a hyperlink, unless explicitly suppressed using starred versions of commands such as \gls* or by identifying the glossary with nohypertypes, described above). Note that nohypertypes overrides hyperfirst=true. This option only affects commands that check the first use flag, such as the \gls-like commands (for example, \gls or \glsdisp), but not the \glstext-like commands (for example, \glslink or \glstext).

The hyperfirst setting applies to all glossary types (unless identified by nohypertypes or defined with \newignoredglossary). It can be overridden on an individual basis by explicitly setting the hyper key when referencing an entry (or by using the plus or starred version of the referencing command).

It may be that you only want to apply this to just the acronyms (where the first use explains the meaning of the acronym) but not for ordinary glossary entries (where the first use is identical to subsequent uses). In this case, you can use hyperfirst=false and apply \glsunsetall to all the regular (non-acronym) glossaries. For example:

 \usepackage[acronym,hyperfirst=false]{glossaries}  
 % acronym and glossary entry definitions  
 % at the end of the preamble  
 \glsunsetall[main]

Alternatively you can redefine the hook

---

\glslinkcheckfirsthyperhook  \glslinkcheckfirsthyperhook

---

which is used by the commands that check the first use flag, such as \gls. Within the definition of this command, you can use \glslabel to reference the entry label and \glstype to reference the glossary type. You can also use \ifglsused to determine if the entry has been used. You can test if an entry is an acronym by checking if it has the long key set using \ifglshaslong. For example, to switch off the hyperlink on first use just for acronyms:

\renewcommand*{\glslinkcheckfirsthyperhook}{%  
 \ifglsused{\glslabel}{}%  
 {%  
   \ifglshaslong{\glslabel}{\setkeys{glslink}{hyper=false}}{}%  
 }%  
}

Note that this hook isn’t used by the commands that don’t check the first use flag, such as \glstext. (You can, instead, redefine \glslinkpostsetkeys, which is used by both the \gls-like and \glstext-like commands.)

indexonlyfirst

This is a boolean option that specifies whether to only add information to the external glossary file on first use. The default is indexonlyfirst=false, which will add a line to the file every time one of the \gls-like or \glstext-like commands are used. Note that \glsadd will always add information to the external glossary file^2.1 (since that’s the purpose of that command).

You can customise this by redefining

---

\glswriteentry  \glswriteentry{⟨label⟩}{⟨wr-code⟩}

---

where ⟨label⟩ is the entry’s label and ⟨wr-code⟩ is the code that writes the entry’s information to the external file. The default definition of \glswriteentry is:

\newcommand*{\glswriteentry}[2]{%  
  \ifglsindexonlyfirst  
    \ifglsused{#1}{}{#2}%  
  \else  
    #2%  
  \fi  
}

This checks the indexonlyfirst package option (using \ifglsindexonlyfirst) and does ⟨wr-code⟩ if this is false otherwise it only does ⟨wr-code⟩ of the entry hasn’t been used.

For example, suppose you only want to index the first use for entries in the acronym glossary and not in the main (or any other) glossary:

\renewcommand*{\glswriteentry}[2]{%  
 \ifthenelse{\equal{\glsentrytype{#1}}{acronym}}  
 {\ifglsused{#1}{}{#2}}%  
 {#2}%  
}

Here I’ve used \ifthenelse to ensure the arguments of \equal are fully expanded before the comparison is made.

savenumberlist

This is a boolean option that specifies whether or not to gather and store the number list for each entry. The default is savenumberlist=false. (See \glsentrynumberlist and \glsdisplaynumberlist in §9 Using Glossary Terms Without Links.) This is always true if you use Option 1.

Top

2.2 Sectioning, Headings and TOC Options

toc

Add the glossaries to the table of contents. Note that an extra LATEX run is required with this option. Alternatively, you can switch this function on and off using

---

\glstoctrue  \glstoctrue

---

and

---

\glstocfalse  \glstocfalse

---

numberline

When used with toc, this will add \numberline{} in the final argument of \addcontentsline. This will align the table of contents entry with the numbered section titles. Note that this option has no effect if the toc option is omitted. If toc is used without numberline, the title will be aligned with the section numbers rather than the section titles.

section

This is a ⟨key⟩=⟨value⟩ option. Its value should be the name of a sectional unit (e.g. chapter). This will make the glossaries appear in the named sectional unit, otherwise each glossary will appear in a chapter, if chapters exist, otherwise in a section. Unnumbered sectional units will be used by default. Example:

\usepackage[section=subsection]{glossaries}

You can omit the value if you want to use sections, i.e. 

\usepackage[section]{glossaries}

is equivalent to

\usepackage[section=section]{glossaries}

You can change this value later in the document using

---

\setglossarysection  \setglossarysection{⟨name⟩}

---

where ⟨name⟩ is the sectional unit.

The start of each glossary adds information to the page header via

---

\glsglossarymark  \glsglossarymark{⟨glossary title⟩}

---

By default this uses \@mkboth^2.2 but you may need to redefine it. For example, to only change the right header:

\renewcommand{\glsglossarymark}[1]{\markright{#1}}

or to prevent it from changing the headers:

\renewcommand{\glsglossarymark}[1]{}

If you want \glsglossarymark to use \MakeUppercase in the header, use the ucmark option described below.

Occasionally you may find that another package defines \cleardoublepage when it is not required. This may cause an unwanted blank page to appear before each glossary. This can be fixed by redefining \glsclearpage \glsclearpage:

\renewcommand*{\glsclearpage}{\clearpage}

ucmark

This is a boolean option (default: ucmark=false, unless memoir has been loaded, in which case it defaults to ucmark=true). If set, \glsglossarymark uses \MakeTextUppercase^2.3. You can test whether this option has been set or not using

---

\ifglsucmark  \ifglsucmark ⟨true part⟩\else ⟨false part⟩\fi

---

For example:

\renewcommand{\glsglossarymark}[1]{%  
  \ifglsucmark  
    \markright{\MakeTextUppercase{#1}}%  
  \else  
    \markright{#1}%  
  \fi}

If memoir has been loaded and ucfirst is set, then memoir’s \memUChead is used.

numberedsection

The glossaries are placed in unnumbered sectional units by default, but this can be changed using numberedsection. This option can take one of the following values:

• false: no number, i.e. use starred form of sectioning command (e.g. \chapter* or \section*);
• nolabel: use a numbered section, i.e. the unstarred form of sectioning command (e.g. \chapter or \section), but the section not labelled;
• autolabel: numbered with automatic labelling. Each glossary uses the unstarred form of a sectioning command (e.g. \chapter or \section) and is assigned a label (via \label). The label is formed from

  ---

  \glsautoprefix  \glsautoprefix ⟨type⟩

  ---

  where ⟨type⟩ is the label identifying that glossary. The default value of \glsautoprefix is empty. For example, if you load glossaries using:

  \usepackage[section,numberedsection=autolabel]  
    {glossaries}

  then each glossary will appear in a numbered section, and can be referenced using something like:

  The main glossary is in section~\ref{main} and  
  the list of acronyms is in section~\ref{acronym}.

  If you can’t decide whether to have the acronyms in the main glossary or a separate list of acronyms, you can use \acronymtype which is set to main if the acronym option is not used and is set to acronym if the acronym option is used. For example:

  The list of acronyms is in section~\ref{\acronymtype}.

  You can redefine the prefix if the default label clashes with another label in your document. For example:

  \renewcommand*{\glsautoprefix}{glo:}

  will add glo: to the automatically generated label, so you can then, for example, refer to the list of acronyms as follows:

  The list of acronyms is in  
  section~\ref{glo:\acronymtype}.

  Or, if you are undecided on a prefix:

  The list of acronyms is in  
  section~\ref{\glsautoprefix\acronymtype}.

• nameref: this is like autolabel but uses an unnumbered sectioning command (e.g. \chapter* or \section*). It’s designed for use with the nameref package. For example:
  \usepackage{nameref}  
  \usepackage[numberedsection=nameref]{glossaries}

  Now \nameref{main} will display the (TOC) section title associated with the main glossary. As above, you can redefine \glsautoprefix to provide a prefix for the label.

Top

2.3 Glossary Appearance Options

entrycounter

This is a boolean option. (Default is entrycounter=false.) If set, each main (level 0) glossary entry will be numbered when using the standard glossary styles. This option creates the counter glossaryentry glossaryentry.

If you use this option, you can reference the entry number within the document using

---

\glsrefentry  \glsrefentry{⟨label⟩}

---

where ⟨label⟩ is the label associated with that glossary entry. The labelling systems uses ⟨prefix⟩⟨label⟩, where ⟨label⟩ is the entry’s label and ⟨prefix⟩ is given by

---

\GlsEntryCounterLabelPrefix  \GlsEntryCounterLabelPrefix

---

(which defaults to glsentry-).

If you use \glsrefentry, you must run LATEX twice after creating the glossary files using makeglossaries, makeindex or xindy to ensure the cross-references are up-to-date.

counterwithin

This is a ⟨key⟩=⟨value⟩ option where ⟨value⟩ is the name of a counter. If used, this option will automatically set entrycounter=true and the glossaryentry counter will be reset every time ⟨value⟩ is incremented.

The glossaryentry counter isn’t automatically reset at the start of each glossary, except when glossary section numbering is on and the counter used by counterwithin is the same as the counter used in the glossary’s sectioning command.

If you want the counter reset at the start of each glossary, you can redefine \glossarypreamble to use

---

\glsresetentrycounter  \glsresetentrycounter

---

which sets glossaryentry to zero:

\renewcommand{\glossarypreamble}{%  
  \glsresetentrycounter  
}

or if you are using \setglossarypreamble, add it to each glossary preamble, as required. For example:

\setglossarypreamble[acronym]{%  
  \glsresetentrycounter  
  The preamble text here for the list of acronyms.  
}  
\setglossarypreamble{%  
  \glsresetentrycounter  
  The preamble text here for the main glossary.  
}

subentrycounter

This is a boolean option. (Default is subentrycounter=false.) If set, each level 1 glossary entry will be numbered when using the standard glossary styles. This option creates the counter glossarysubentry glossarysubentry. The counter is reset with each main (level 0) entry. Note that this package option is independent of entrycounter. You can reference the number within the document using \glsrefentry{⟨label⟩} where ⟨label⟩ is the label associated with the sub-entry.

style

This is a ⟨key⟩=⟨value⟩ option. (Default is style=list, unless classicthesis has been loaded, in which case the default is style=index.) Its value should be the name of the glossary style to use. This key may only be used for styles defined in glossary-list, glossary-long, glossary-super or glossary-tree. Alternatively, you can set the style using

---

\setglossarystyle{⟨style name⟩}

---

(See §15 Glossary Styles for further details.)

nolong

This prevents the glossaries package from automatically loading glossary-long (which means that the longtable package also won’t be loaded). This reduces overhead by not defining unwanted styles and commands. Note that if you use this option, you won’t be able to use any of the glossary styles defined in the glossary-long package (unless you explicitly load glossary-long).

nosuper

This prevents the glossaries package from automatically loading glossary-super (which means that the supertabular package also won’t be loaded). This reduces overhead by not defining unwanted styles and commands. Note that if you use this option, you won’t be able to use any of the glossary styles defined in the glossary-super package (unless you explicitly load glossary-super).

nolist

This prevents the glossaries package from automatically loading glossary-list. This reduces overhead by not defining unwanted styles. Note that if you use this option, you won’t be able to use any of the glossary styles defined in the glossary-list package (unless you explicitly load glossary-list). Note that since the default style is list (unless classicthesis has been loaded), you will also need to use the style option to set the style to something else.

notree

This prevents the glossaries package from automatically loading glossary-tree. This reduces overhead by not defining unwanted styles. Note that if you use this option, you won’t be able to use any of the glossary styles defined in the glossary-tree package (unless you explicitly load glossary-tree). Note that if classicthesis has been loaded, the default style is index, which is provided by glossary-tree.

nostyles

This prevents all the predefined styles from being loaded. If you use this option, you need to load a glossary style package (such as glossary-mcols). Also if you use this option, you can’t use the style package option. Instead you must either use \setglossarystyle{⟨style⟩} or the style key in the optional argument to \printglossary. Example:

\usepackage[nostyles]{glossaries}  
\usepackage{glossary-mcols}  
\setglossarystyle{mcoltree}

nonumberlist

This option will suppress the associated number lists in the glossaries (see also §5 Number lists). Note that if you use Options 2 or 3 (makeindex or xindy) then the locations must still be valid. This package option merely prevents the number list from being displayed, but both makeindex and xindy still require a location or cross-reference for each term that’s indexed. Remember that number list includes any cross-references, so suppressing the number list will also hide the cross-references (see below).

seeautonumberlist

If you suppress the number lists with nonumberlist, described above, this will also suppress any cross-referencing information supplied by the see key in \newglossaryentry or \glssee. If you use seeautonumberlist, the see key will automatically implement nonumberlist=false for that entry. (Note this doesn’t affect \glssee.) For further details see §8 Cross-Referencing Entries.

counter

This is a ⟨key⟩=⟨value⟩ option. (Default is counter=page.) The value should be the name of the default counter to use in the number lists (see §5 Number lists).

nopostdot

This is a boolean option. If no value is specified, true is assumed. When set to true, this option suppresses the default post description dot used by some of the predefined styles. The default setting is nopostdot=false.

nogroupskip

This is a boolean option. If no value is specified, true is assumed. When set to true, this option suppresses the default vertical gap between groups used by some of the predefined styles. The default setting is nogroupskip=false.

Top

2.4 Sorting Options

sort

If you use Options 2 or 3, this package option is the only way of specifying how to sort the glossaries. Only Option 1 allows you to specify sort methods for individual glossaries via the sort key in the optional argument of \printnoidxglossary. If you have multiple glossaries in your document and you are using Option 1, only use the package options sort=def or sort=use if you want to set this sort method for all your glossaries.

This is a ⟨key⟩=⟨value⟩ option where ⟨value⟩ may be one of the following:

• standard : entries are sorted according to the value of the sort key used in \newglossaryentry (if present) or the name key (if sort key is missing);
• def : entries are sorted in the order in which they were defined (the sort key in \newglossaryentry is ignored);
• use : entries are sorted according to the order in which they are used in the document (the sort key in \newglossaryentry is ignored).

  Both sort=def and sort=use set the sort key to a six digit number via

  ---

  \glssortnumberfmt  \glssortnumberfmt{⟨number⟩}

  ---

  (padded with leading zeros, where necessary). This can be redefined, if required, before the entries are defined (in the case of sort=def) or before the entries are used (in the case of sort=use).

• none : this setting is new to version 4.30 and is only for documents that don’t use \makeglossaries (Options 2 or 3) or \makenoidxglossaries (Option 1). It omits the code used to sanitize or escape the sort value, since it’s not required. This can help to improve the document build speed, especially if there are a large number of entries. This option can’t be used with \printglossary or \printnoidxglossary (or the iterative versions \printglossaries or \printnoidxglossaries). It may be used with glossaries-extra’s \printunsrtglossary (Option 5).

Note that the group styles (such as listgroup) are incompatible with the sort=use and sort=def options.

The default is sort=standard. When the standard sort option is in use, you can hook into the sort mechanism by redefining:

---

\glsprestandardsort  \glsprestandardsort{⟨sort cs⟩}{⟨type⟩}{⟨label⟩}

---

where ⟨sort cs⟩ is a temporary control sequence that stores the sort value (which was either explicitly set via the sort key or implicitly set via the name key) before any escaping of the makeindex/xindy special characters is performed. By default \glsprestandardsort just does:

---

\glsdosanitizesort  \glsdosanitizesort

---

which sanitizes ⟨sort cs⟩ if the sanitizesort package option is set (or does nothing if the package option sanitizesort=false is used).

The other arguments, ⟨type⟩ and ⟨label⟩, are the glossary type and the entry label for the current entry. Note that ⟨type⟩ will always be a control sequence, but ⟨label⟩ will be in the form used in the first argument of \newglossaryentry.

Redefining \glsprestandardsort won’t affect any entries that have already been defined and will have no effect at all if you are using sort=def or sort=use.

Example 1 (Mixing Alphabetical and Order of Definition Sorting)

Suppose I have three glossaries: main, acronym and notation, and let’s suppose I want the main and acronym glossaries to be sorted alphabetically, but the notation type should be sorted in order of definition.

For Option 1, I just need to set the sort key in the optional argument of \printnoidxglossary:

\printnoidxglossary[sort=word]  
\printnoidxglossary[type=acronym,sort=word]  
\printnoidxglossary[type=notation,sort=def]

For Options 2 or 3, I can set the sort to standard (which is the default, but can be explicitly set via the package option sort=standard), and I can either define all my main and acronym entries, then redefine \glsprestandardsort to set ⟨sort cs⟩ to an incremented integer, and then define all my notation entries. Alternatively, I can redefine \glsprestandardsort to check for the glossary type and only modify ⟨sort cs⟩ if ⟨type⟩ is notation.

The first option can be achieved as follows:

\newcounter{sortcount}  
\renewcommand{\glsprestandardsort}[3]{%  
  \stepcounter{sortcount}%  
  \edef#1{\glssortnumberfmt{\arabic{sortcount}}}%  
}

The second option can be achieved as follows:

\newcounter{sortcount}  
\renewcommand{\glsprestandardsort}[3]{%  
  \ifdefstring{#2}{notation}%  
  {%  
     \stepcounter{sortcount}%  
     \edef#1{\glssortnumberfmt{\arabic{sortcount}}}%  
  }%  
  {%  
     \glsdosanitizesort  
  }%  
}

(\ifdefstring is defined by the etoolbox package.) For a complete document, see the sample file sampleSort.tex.

____________________________

Example 2 (Customizing Standard Sort (Options 2 or 3))

Suppose you want a glossary of people and you want the names listed as ⟨first-name⟩ ⟨surname⟩ in the glossary, but you want the names sorted by ⟨surname⟩, ⟨first-name⟩. You can do this by defining a command called, say, \name{⟨first-name⟩}{⟨surname⟩} that you can use in the name key when you define the entry, but hook into the standard sort mechanism to temporarily redefine \name while the sort value is being set.

First, define two commands to set the person’s name:

\newcommand{\sortname}[2]{#2, #1}  
\newcommand{\textname}[2]{#1 #2}

and \name needs to be initialised to \textname:

\let\name\textname

Now redefine \glsprestandardsort so that it temporarily sets \name to \sortname and expands the sort value, then sets \name to \textname so that the person’s name appears as ⟨first-name⟩ ⟨surname⟩ in the text:

\renewcommand{\glsprestandardsort}[3]{%  
 \let\name\sortname  
 \edef#1{\expandafter\expandonce\expandafter{#1}}%  
 \let\name\textname  
 \glsdosanitizesort  
}

(The somewhat complicate use of \expandafter etc helps to protect fragile commands, but care is still needed.)

Now the entries can be defined:

\newglossaryentry{joebloggs}{name={\name{Joe}{Bloggs}},  
  description={some information about Joe Bloggs}}  
\newglossaryentry{johnsmith}{name={\name{John}{Smith}},  
  description={some information about John Smith}}

For a complete document, see the sample file samplePeople.tex.

____________________________

order

This may take two values: word or letter. The default is word ordering.

Note that the order option has no effect if you don’t use makeglossaries.

If you use Option 1, this setting will be used if you use sort=standard in the optional argument of \printnoidxglossary:

\printnoidxglossary[sort=standard]

Alternatively, you can specify the order for individual glossaries:

\printnoidxglossary[sort=word]  
\printnoidxglossary[type=acronym,sort=letter]

makeindex

(Option 2) The glossary information and indexing style file will be written in makeindex format. If you use makeglossaries, it will automatically detect that it needs to call makeindex. If you don’t use makeglossaries, you need to remember to use makeindex not xindy. The indexing style file will been given a .ist extension.

You may omit this package option if you are using Option 2 as this is the default. It’s available in case you need to override the effect of an earlier occurrence of xindy in the package option list.

xindy

(Option 3) The glossary information and indexing style file will be written in xindy format. If you use makeglossaries, it will automatically detect that it needs to call xindy. If you don’t use makeglossaries, you need to remember to use xindy not makeindex. The indexing style file will been given a .xdy extension.

This package option may additionally have a value that is a ⟨key⟩=⟨value⟩ comma-separated list to override the language and codepage. For example:

\usepackage[xindy={language=english,codepage=utf8}]  
  {glossaries}

You can also specify whether you want a number group in the glossary. This defaults to true, but can be suppressed. For example:

\usepackage[xindy={glsnumbers=false}]{glossaries}

If no value is supplied to this package option (either simply writing xindy or writing xindy={}) then the language, codepage and number group settings are unchanged. See §11 Xindy (Option 3) for further details on using xindy with the glossaries package.

xindygloss

(Option 3) This is equivalent to xindy={} (that is, the xindy option without any value supplied) and may be used as a document class option. The language and code page can be set via \GlsSetXdyLanguage and \GlsSetXdyCodePage (see §11.1 Language and Encodings.)

xindynoglsnumbers

(Option 3) This is equivalent to xindy={glsnumbers=false} and may be used as a document class option.

automake

This is option was introduced to version 4.08 as a boolean option. As from version 4.42 it may now take three values: false (default), true or immediate. If no option is supplied, immediate is assumed. The option automake=true will attempt to run makeindex or xindy using TEX’s \write18 mechanism at the end of the document. The option automake=immediate will attempt to run makeindex or xindy at the start of \makeglossaries using \immediate (before the glossary files have been opened).

In the case of automake=true, the associated files are created at the end of the document ready for the next LATEX run. Since there is a possibility of commands such as \gls occurring on the last page of the document, it’s not possible to use \immediate to close the associated file or with \write18 since the writing of the final indexing lines may have been delayed. In certain situations this can mean that the \write18 fails. In such cases, you will need to use automake=immediate instead.

With automake=immediate, you will get a warning on the first LATEX run as the associated glossary files don’t exist yet.

Since this mechanism can be a security risk, some TEX distributions disable it completely, in which case this option won’t have an effect. (If this option doesn’t appear to work, search the log file for “runsystem” and see if it is followed by “enabled” or “disabled”.)

Some distributions allow \write18 in a restricted mode. This mode has a limited number of trusted applications, which usually includes makeindex but may not include xindy. So if you have the restricted mode on, automake should work with makeindex but may not work with xindy.

However even in unrestricted mode this option may not work with xindy as xindy uses language names that don’t always correspond with \babel’s language names. (The makeglossaries script applies mappings to assist you.) Note that you still need at least two LATEX runs to ensure the document is up-to-date with this setting.

Since this package option attempts to run the indexing application on every LATEX run, its use should be considered a last resort for those who can’t work out how to incorporate the indexing application into their document build. The default value for this option is automake=false.

Top

2.5 Acronym Options

acronym

This creates a new glossary with the label acronym. This is equivalent to:

\newglossary[alg]{acronym}{acr}{acn}{\acronymname}

It will also define

---

\printacronyms  \printacronyms[⟨options⟩]

---

that’s equivalent to

\printglossary[type=acronym,⟨options⟩]

(unless that command is already defined before the beginning of the document or the package option compatible-3.07 is used).

If you are using Option 1, you need to use

\printnoidxglossary[type=acronym,⟨options⟩]

to display the list of acronyms.

If the acronym package option is used, \acronymtype is set to acronym otherwise it is set to main.^2.4 Entries that are defined using \newacronym are placed in the glossary whose label is given by \acronymtype, unless another glossary is explicitly specified.

Remember to use the nomain package option if you’re only interested in using this acronym glossary. (That is, you don’t intend to use the main glossary.)

acronyms

This is equivalent to acronym=true and may be used in the document class option list.

acronymlists

By default, only the \acronymtype glossary is considered to be a list of acronyms. If you have other lists of acronyms, you can specify them as a comma-separated list in the value of acronymlists. For example, if you use the acronym package option but you also want the main glossary to also contain a list of acronyms, you can do:

\usepackage[acronym,acronymlists={main}]{glossaries}

No check is performed to determine if the listed glossaries exist, so you can add glossaries you haven’t defined yet. For example:

\usepackage[acronym,acronymlists={main,acronym2}]  
  {glossaries}  
\newglossary[alg2]{acronym2}{acr2}{acn2}%  
  {Statistical Acronyms}

You can use

---

\DeclareAcronymList  \DeclareAcronymList{⟨list⟩}

---

instead of or in addition to the acronymlists option. This will add the glossaries given in ⟨list⟩ to the list of glossaries that are identified as lists of acronyms. To replace the list of acronym lists with a new list use:

---

\SetAcronymLists  \SetAcronymLists{⟨list⟩}

---

You can determine if a glossary has been identified as being a list of acronyms using:

---

\glsIfListOfAcronyms  \glsIfListOfAcronyms{⟨label⟩}{⟨true part⟩}{⟨false part⟩}

---

shortcuts

This option provides shortcut commands for acronyms. See §13 Acronyms and Other Abbreviations for further details. Alternatively you can use:

---

\DefineAcronymSynonyms  \DefineAcronymSynonyms

---

Top

2.5.1 Deprecated Acronym Style Options

The package options listed in this section are now deprecated but are kept for backward-compatibility. Use \setacronymstyle instead. See §13 Acronyms and Other Abbreviations for further details.

description

This option changes the definition of \newacronym to allow a description. This option may be replaced by

\setacronymstyle{long-short-desc}

or (with smallcaps)

\setacronymstyle{long-sc-short-desc}

or (with smaller)

\setacronymstyle{long-sm-short-desc}

or (with footnote)

\setacronymstyle{footnote-desc}

or (with footnote and smallcaps)

\setacronymstyle{footnote-sc-desc}

or (with footnote and smaller)

\setacronymstyle{footnote-sm-desc}

or (with dua)

\setacronymstyle{dua-desc}

smallcaps

This option changes the definition of \newacronym and the way that acronyms are displayed. This option may be replaced by:

\setacronymstyle{long-sc-short}

or (with description)

\setacronymstyle{long-sc-short-desc}

or (with description and footnote)

\setacronymstyle{footnote-sc-desc}

smaller

This option changes the definition of \newacronym and the way that acronyms are displayed.

If you use this option, you will need to include the relsize package or otherwise define \textsmaller or redefine \acronymfont.

This option may be replaced by:

\setacronymstyle{long-sm-short}

or (with description)

\setacronymstyle{long-sm-short-desc}

or (with description and footnote)

\setacronymstyle{footnote-sm-desc}

footnote

This option changes the definition of \newacronym and the way that acronyms are displayed. This option may be replaced by:

\setacronymstyle{footnote}

or (with smallcaps)

\setacronymstyle{footnote-sc}

or (with smaller)

\setacronymstyle{footnote-sm}

or (with description)

\setacronymstyle{footnote-desc}

or (with smallcaps and description)

\setacronymstyle{footnote-sc-desc}

or (with smaller and description)

\setacronymstyle{footnote-sm-desc}

dua

This option changes the definition of \newacronym so that acronyms are always expanded. This option may be replaced by:

\setacronymstyle{dua}

or (with description)

\setacronymstyle{dua-desc}

Top

2.6 Other Options

Other available options that don’t fit any of the above categories are:

symbols

This option defines a new glossary type with the label symbols via

\newglossary[slg]{symbols}{sls}{slo}{\glssymbolsgroupname}

It also defines

---

\printsymbols  \printsymbols[⟨options⟩]

---

which is a synonym for

\printglossary[type=symbols,⟨options⟩]

If you use Option 1, you need to use:

\printnoidxglossary[type=symbols,⟨options⟩]

to display the list of symbols.

Remember to use the nomain package option if you’re only interested in using this symbols glossary and don’t intend to use the main glossary.

The glossaries-extra package has a slightly modified version of this option which additionally provides \glsxtrnewsymbol as a convenient shortcut method for defining symbols. See the glossaries-extra manual for further details.

numbers

This option defines a new glossary type with the label numbers via

\newglossary[nlg]{numbers}{nls}{nlo}{\glsnumbersgroupname}

It also defines

---

\printnumbers  \printnumbers[⟨options⟩]

---

which is a synonym for

\printglossary[type=numbers,⟨options⟩]

If you use Option 1, you need to use:

\printnoidxglossary[type=numbers,⟨options⟩]

to display the list of numbers.

Remember to use the nomain package option if you’re only interested in using this numbers glossary and don’t intend to use the main glossary.

The glossaries-extra package has a slightly modified version of this option which additionally provides \glsxtrnewnumber as a convenient shortcut method for defining numbers. See the glossaries-extra manual for further details.

index

This option defines a new glossary type with the label index via

\newglossary[ilg]{index}{ind}{idx}{\indexname}%

It also defines

---

\newterm  \newterm[⟨options⟩]{⟨term⟩}

---

which is a synonym for

\newglossaryentry{⟨term⟩}[type=index,name={⟨term⟩},%
description=\nopostdesc,⟨options⟩]

and

---

\printindex  \printindex[⟨options⟩]

---

which is a synonym for

\printglossary[type=index,⟨options⟩]

If you use Option 1, you need to use:

\printnoidxglossary[type=index,⟨options⟩]

to display this glossary.

Remember to use the nomain package option if you’re only interested in using this index glossary and don’t intend to use the main glossary. Note that you can’t mix this option with \index. Either use glossaries for the indexing or use a custom indexing package, such as makeidx, index or imakeidx. (You can, of course, load one of those packages and load glossaries without the index package option.)

Since the index isn’t designed for terms with descriptions, you might also want to disable the hyperlinks for this glossary using the package option nohypertypes=index or the command
\GlsDeclareNoHyperList{index}

The example file sample-index.tex illustrates the use of the index package option.

noglossaryindex

This option switches off index if index has been passed implicitly (for example, through global document options). This option can’t be used in \setupglossaries.

compatible-2.07

Compatibility mode for old documents created using version 2.07 or below.

compatible-3.07

Compatibility mode for old documents created using version 3.07 or below.

kernelglossredefs

As a legacy from the precursor glossary package, the standard glossary commands provided by the LATEX kernel (\makeglossary and \glossary) are redefined in terms of the glossaries package’s commands. However, they were never documented in this user manual, and the conversion guide (“Upgrading from the glossary package to the glossaries package”) explicitly discourages their use.

The use of those kernel commands (instead of the appropriate commands documented in this user guide) are deprecated, and you will now get a warning if you try using them.

In the event that you require the original form of these kernel commands, for example, if you need to use the glossaries package with another class or package that also performs glossary-style indexing, then you can restore these commands to their previous definition (that is, their definitions prior to loading the glossaries package) with the package option kernelglossredefs=false. You may also need to use the nomain option in the event of file extension conflicts. (In which case, you must provide a new default glossary for use with the glossaries package.)

This option may take one of three values: true (redefine with warnings, default), false (restore previous definitions) or nowarn (redefine without warnings, not recommended).

Note that the only glossary-related commands provided by the LATEX kernel are \makeglossary and \glossary. Other packages or classes may provide additional glossary-related commands or environments that conflict with glossaries (such as \printglossary and theglossary). These non-kernel commands aren’t affected by this package option, and you will have to find some way to resolve the conflict if you require both glossary mechanisms. (The glossaries package will override the existing definitions of \printglossary and theglossary.)

In general, if possible, it’s best to stick with just one package that provides a glossary mechanism. (The glossaries package does check for the doc package and patches \PrintChanges.)

Top

2.7 Setting Options After the Package is Loaded

Some of the options described above may also be set after the glossaries package has been loaded using

The following package options can’t be used in \setupglossaries: xindy, xindygloss, xindynoglsnumbers, makeindex, nolong, nosuper, nolist, notree, nostyles, nomain, compatible-2.07, translate, notranslate, acronym. These options have to be set while the package is loading, except for the xindy sub-options which can be set using commands like \GlsSetXdyLanguage (see §11 Xindy (Option 3) for further details).

3. Setting Up

In the preamble you need to indicate whether you want to use Option 1, Option 2 or Option 3. It’s not possible to mix these options within a document, although some combinations are possible with glossaries-extra. (For Options 4 and 5 see the bib2gls and glossaries-extra manuals.)

Top

3.1 Option 1

The command

must be placed in the preamble. This sets up the internal commands required to make Option 1 work. If you omit \makenoidxglossaries none of the glossaries will be displayed.

Top

3.2 Options 2 and 3

The command

must be placed in the preamble in order to create the customised makeindex (.ist) or xindy (.xdy) style file (for Options 2 or 3, respectively) and to ensure that glossary entries are written to the appropriate output files. If you omit \makeglossaries none of the glossary files will be created.

You can suppress the creation of the customised xindy or makeindex style file using

That this command must not be used after \makeglossaries.

The default name for the customised style file is given by \jobname.ist (Option 2) or \jobname.xdy (Option 3). This name may be changed using:

where ⟨name⟩ is the name of the style file without the extension. Note that this command must not be used after \makeglossaries.

Each glossary entry is assigned a number list that lists all the locations in the document where that entry was used. By default, the location refers to the page number but this may be overridden using the counter package option. The default form of the location number assumes a full stop compositor (e.g. 1.2), but if your location numbers use a different compositor (e.g. 1-2) you need to set this using

For example:

This command must not be used after \makeglossaries.

If you use Option 3, you can have a different compositor for page numbers starting with an upper case alphabetical character using:

This command has no effect if you use Option 2. For example, if you want number lists containing a mixture of A-1 and 2.3 style formats, then do:

See §5 Number lists for further information about number lists.

4. Defining Glossary Entries

All glossary entries must be defined before they are used, so it is better to define them in the preamble to ensure this. In fact, some commands such as \longnewglossaryentry may only be used in the preamble. See §4.8 Drawbacks With Defining Entries in the Document Environment for a discussion of the problems with defining entries within the document instead of in the preamble. (The glossaries-extra package has an option that provides a restricted form of document definitions that avoids some of the issues discussed in §4.8 Drawbacks With Defining Entries in the Document Environment.)

Only those entries that are indexed in the document (using any of the commands described in §6 Links to Glossary Entries, §7 Adding an Entry to the Glossary Without Generating Text or §8 Cross-Referencing Entries) will appear in the glossary. See §10 Displaying a glossary to find out how to display the glossary.

New glossary entries are defined using the command:

This is a short command, so values in ⟨key-val list⟩ can’t contain any paragraph breaks. Take care to enclose values containing any commas (,) or equal signs (=) with braces to hide them from the key=value list parser. Be careful to ensure that no spurious spaces are included at the start and end of the braces.

If you have a long description that needs to span multiple paragraphs, use

instead. Note that this command may only be used in the preamble. Be careful of unwanted spaces. \longnewglossaryentry will remove trailing spaces in the description (via \unskip) but won’t remove leading spaces (otherwise it would interfere with commands like \Glsentrydesc). This command also appends \nopostdesc to the end of the description, which suppresses the post-description hook. The glossaries-extra package provides a starred version of \longnewglossaryentry that doesn’t append either \unskip or \nopostdesc.

There are also commands that will only define the entry if it hasn’t already been defined:

and

(These are both preamble-only commands.)

For all the above commands, the first argument, ⟨label⟩, must be a unique label with which to identify this entry. This can’t contain any non-expandable commands or active characters. The reason for this restriction is that the label is used to construct internal commands that store the associated information (similarly to commands like \label) and therefore must be able to expand to a valid control sequence name.

The second argument, ⟨key=value list⟩, is a ⟨key⟩=⟨value⟩ list that supplies the relevant information about this entry. There are two required fields: description and either name or parent. The description is set in the third argument of \longnewglossaryentry and \longprovideglossaryentry. With the other commands it’s set via the description key. As is typical with ⟨key⟩=⟨value⟩ lists, values that contain a comma or equal sign must be enclosed in braces. Available fields are listed below. Additional fields are provided by the supplementary packages glossaries-prefix (§17 Prefixes or Determiners) and glossaries-accsupp (§18 Accessibility Support) and also by glossaries-extra. You can also define your own custom keys (see §4.3 Additional Keys).

name

The name of the entry (as it will appear in the glossary). If this key is omitted and the parent key is supplied, this value will be the same as the parent’s name.

If the name key contains any commands, you must also use the sort key (described below) if you intend sorting the entries alphabetically, otherwise the entries can’t be sorted correctly.

description

A brief description of this term (to appear in the glossary). Within this value, you can use

---

\nopostdesc  \nopostdesc

---

to suppress the description terminator for this entry. For example, if this entry is a parent entry that doesn’t require a description, you can do description={\nopostdesc}. If you want a paragraph break in the description use

---

\glspar  \glspar

---

or, better, use \longnewglossaryentry. However, note that not all glossary styles support multi-line descriptions. If you are using one of the tabular-like glossary styles that permit multi-line descriptions, use \newline not \\ if you want to force a line break.

parent

The label of the parent entry. Note that the parent entry must be defined before its sub-entries. See §4.5 Sub-Entries for further details.

descriptionplural

The plural form of the description, if required. If omitted, the value is set to the same as the description key.

text

How this entry will appear in the document text when using \gls (or one of its upper case variants). If this field is omitted, the value of the name key is used.

first

How the entry will appear in the document text on first use with \gls (or one of its upper case variants). If this field is omitted, the value of the text key is used. Note that if you use \glspl, \Glspl, \GLSpl, \glsdisp before using \gls, the firstplural value won’t be used with \gls.

plural

How the entry will appear in the document text when using \glspl (or one of its upper case variants). If this field is omitted, the value is obtained by appending \glspluralsuffix to the value of the text field. The default value of \glspluralsuffix is the letter “s”.

firstplural

How the entry will appear in the document text on first use with \glspl (or one of its upper case variants). If this field is omitted, the value is obtained from the plural key, if the first key is omitted, or by appending \glspluralsuffix to the value of the first field, if the first field is present. Note that if you use \gls, \Gls, \GLS, \glsdisp before using \glspl, the firstplural value won’t be used with \glspl.

Note: prior to version 1.13, the default value of firstplural was always taken by appending “s” to the first key, which meant that you had to specify both plural and firstplural, even if you hadn’t used the first key.

symbol

This field is provided to allow the user to specify an associated symbol. If omitted, the value is set to \relax. Note that not all glossary styles display the symbol.

symbolplural

This is the plural form of the symbol (as passed to \glsdisplay and \glsdisplayfirst by \glspl, \Glspl and \GLSpl). If omitted, the value is set to the same as the symbol key.

sort

This value indicates how this entry should be sorted. If omitted, the value is given by the name field unless one of the package options sort=def and sort=use have been used. In general, it’s best to use the sort key if the name contains commands (e.g. \ensuremath{\alpha}). You can also override the sort key by redefining \glsprestandardsort (see §2.4 Sorting Options).

Option 1 by default strips the standard LATEX accents (that is, accents generated by core LATEX commands) from the name key when it sets the sort key. So with Option 1:

\newglossaryentry{elite}{%  
  name={{\'e}lite},  
  description={select group of people}  
}

This is equivalent to:

\newglossaryentry{elite}{%  
  name={{\'e}lite},  
  description={select group of people},  
  sort={elite}  
}

Unless you use the package option sanitizesort=true, in which case it’s equivalent to:

\newglossaryentry{elite}{%  
  name={{\'e}lite},  
  description={select group of people},  
  sort={\'elite}  
}

This will place the entry before the “A” letter group since the sort value starts with a symbol.

Similarly if you use the inputenc package:

\newglossaryentry{elite}{%
  name={{é}lite},
  description={select group of people}
}

This is equivalent to

\newglossaryentry{elite}{%
  name={{é}lite},
  description={select group of people},
  sort=elite
}

Unless you use the package option sanitizesort=true, in which case it’s equivalent to:

\newglossaryentry{elite}{%
  name={{é}lite},
  description={select group of people},
  sort=élite
}

Again, this will place the entry before the “A” group.

With Options 2 and 3, the default value of sort will either be set to the name key (if sanitizesort=true) or it will set it to the expansion of the name key (if sanitizesort=false).

Take care with xindy (Option 3): if you have entries with the same sort value they will be treated as the same entry. If you use xindy and aren’t using the def or use sort methods, always use the sort key for entries where the name just consists of a control sequence (for example name={\alpha}).

Take care if you use Option 1 and the name contains fragile commands. You will either need to explicitly set the sort key or use the sanitizesort=true package option (unless you use the def or use sort methods).

type

This specifies the label of the glossary in which this entry belongs. If omitted, the default glossary is assumed unless \newacronym is used (see §13 Acronyms and Other Abbreviations).

user1, …, user6

Six keys provided for any additional information the user may want to specify. (For example, an associated dimension or an alternative plural or some other grammatical construct.) Alternatively, you can add new keys using \glsaddkey or \glsaddstoragekey (see §4.3 Additional Keys).

nonumberlist

A boolean key. If the value is missing or is true, this will suppress the number list just for this entry. Conversely, if you have used the package option nonumberlist, you can activate the number list just for this entry with nonumberlist=false. (See §5 Number lists.)

see

Cross-reference another entry. Using the see key will automatically add this entry to the glossary, but will not automatically add the cross-referenced entry. The referenced entry should be supplied as the value to this key. If you want to override the “see” tag, you can supply the new tag in square brackets before the label. For example see=[see also]{anotherlabel}. Note that if you have suppressed the number list, the cross-referencing information won’t appear in the glossary, as it forms part of the number list. You can override this for individual glossary entries using nonumberlist=false (see above). Alternatively, you can use the seeautonumberlist package option. For further details, see §8 Cross-Referencing Entries.

This key essentially provides a convenient shortcut that performs

\glssee[⟨tag⟩]{⟨label⟩}{⟨xr-label list⟩}

after the entry has been defined.

For Options 2 and 3, \makeglossaries must be used before any occurrence of \newglossaryentry that contains the see key. This key should not be used with entries defined in the document environment.

Since it’s useful to suppress the indexing while working on a draft document, consider using the seenoindex package option to warn or ignore the see key while \makeglossaries is commented out.

If you use the see key, you may want to consider using the glossaries-extra package which additionally provides a seealso and alias key. If you want to avoid the automatic indexing triggered by the see key, consider using Option 4.