User Manual for glossaries.sty v4.03

User Manual for glossaries.sty v4.03

Nicola L.C. Talbot
http://www.dickimaw-_books.com/

2014-01-20

Abstract

The glossaries package provides a means to define terms or acronyms or symbols that can be referenced within your document. Sorted lists with collated locations can be generated using a supplementary indexing application.

Documents have various styles when it comes to presenting glossaries or lists of terms or notation. People have their own preferences and to a large extent this is determined by the kind of information that needs to go in the glossary. They may just have symbols with terse descriptions or they may have long technical words with complicated descriptions. The glossaries package is flexible enough to accommodate such varied requirements, but this flexibility comes at a price: a big manual.

😱 If you’re freaking out at the size of this manual, start with glossariesbegin.pdf (“The glossaries package: a guide for beginnners”). You should find it in the same directory as this document or try texdoc glossariesbegin.pdf. Once you’ve got to grips with the basics, then come back to this manual to find out how to adjust the settings.

The glossaries bundle comes with the following documentation:

glossariesbegin.pdf
If you are a complete beginner, start with “The glossaries package: a guide for beginners”.
glossary2glossaries.pdf
If you are moving over from the obsolete glossary package, read “Upgrading from the glossary package to the glossaries package”.
glossaries-user.pdf
This document is the main user guide for the glossaries package.
mfirstuc-_manual.pdf
The commands provided by the mfirstuc package are briefly described in “mfirstuc.sty: uppercasing first letter”.
glossaries-_code.pdf
Advanced users wishing to know more about the inner workings of all the packages provided in the glossaries bundle should read “Documented Code for glossaries v4.03”. This includes the documented code for the mfirstuc package.
INSTALL
Installation instructions.
CHANGES
Change log.
README
Package summary.

If you use hyperref and glossaries, you must load hyperref first. Similarly the doc package must also be loaded before glossaries. (If doc is loaded, the file extensions for the default main glossary are changed to gls2, glo2 and .glg2 to avoid conflict with doc’s changes glossary.)

If you are using hyperref, it’s best to use pdflatex rather than latex (DVI format) as pdflatex deals with hyperlinks much better. If you use the DVI format, you will encounter problems where you have long hyperlinks or hyperlinks in subscripts or superscripts. This is an issue with the DVI format not with glossaries.

Other documents that describe using the glossaries package include: Using LaTeX to Write a PhD Thesis and Glossaries, Nomenclature, Lists of Symbols and Acronyms.

Contents

Glossary
1 Introduction
 1.1 Sample Documents
 1.2 Multi-Lingual Support
  1.2.1 Changing the Fixed Names
 1.3 Generating the Associated Glossary Files
  1.3.1 Using the makeglossaries Perl Script
  1.3.2 Using xindy explicitly
  1.3.3 Using makeindex explicitly
  1.3.4 Note to Front-End and Script Developers
2 Package Options
 2.1 General Options
 2.2 Sectioning, Headings and TOC Options
 2.3 Glossary Appearance Options
 2.4 Sorting Options
 2.5 Acronym Options
  2.5.1 Deprecated Acronym Style Options
 2.6 Other Options
 2.7 Setting Options After the Package is Loaded
3 Setting Up
4 Defining Glossary Entries
 4.1 Plurals
 4.2 Other Grammatical Constructs
 4.3 Additional Keys
 4.4 Expansion
 4.5 Sub-Entries
  4.5.1 Hierarchical Categories
  4.5.2 Homographs
 4.6 Loading Entries From a File
 4.7 Moving Entries to Another Glossary
 4.8 Drawbacks With Defining Entries in the Document Environment
  4.8.1 Technical Issues
  4.8.2 Good Practice Issues
5 Number lists
6 Links to Glossary Entries
 6.1 Changing the format of the link text
 6.2 Enabling and disabling hyperlinks to glossary entries
7 Adding an Entry to the Glossary Without Generating Text
8 Cross-Referencing Entries
 8.1 Customising Cross-reference Text
9 Using Glossary Terms Without Links
10 Displaying a glossary
11 Xindy
 11.1 Language and Encodings
 11.2 Locations and Number lists
 11.3 Glossary Groups
12 Defining New Glossaries
13 Acronyms
 13.1 Changing the Acronym Style
  13.1.1 Predefined Acronym Styles
  13.1.2 Defining A Custom Acronym Style
 13.2 Displaying the List of Acronyms
 13.3 Upgrading From the glossary Package
14 Unsetting and Resetting Entry Flags
15 Glossary Styles
 15.1 Predefined Styles
  15.1.1 List Styles
  15.1.2 Longtable Styles
  15.1.3 Longtable Styles (Ragged Right)
  15.1.4 Supertabular Styles
  15.1.5 Supertabular Styles (Ragged Right)
  15.1.6 Tree-Like Styles
  15.1.7 Multicols Style
  15.1.8 In-Line Style
 15.2 Defining your own glossary style
16 Utilities
17 Prefixes or Determiners
18 Accessibility Support
19 Troubleshooting
Index

List of Tables

1.1 Supported Languages
1.2 Customised Text
1.3 Commands and package options that have no effect when using xindy or makeindex explicitly
4.1 Key to Field Mappings
6.1 Predefined Hyperlinked Location Formats
13.1 Synonyms provided by the package option shortcuts
13.2 The effect of using xspace
15.1 Glossary Styles
15.2 Multicolumn Styles

Glossary

This glossary style was setup using:
\usepackage[xindy,

nonumberlist,

seeautonumberlist,

toc,

style=altlist,

nogroupskip]{glossaries}

\glsnoexpandfields
\renewcommand*{\glsseeformat}[3][\seename]{%
(\xmakefirstuc{#1} \glsseelist{#2}.)}

Command Line Interface (CLI)

An application that doesn’t have a graphical user interface. That is, an application that doesn’t have any windows, buttons or menus and can be run in a command prompt or terminal.
Entry location

The location of the entry in the document. This defaults to the page number on which the entry appears. An entry may have multiple locations.
First use

The first time a glossary entry is used (from the start of the document or after a reset) with one of the following commands: \gls, \Gls, \GLS, \glspl, \Glspl, \GLSpl or \glsdisp. (See first use flag & first use text.)
First use flag

A conditional that determines whether or not the entry has been used according to the rules of first use. Commands to unset or reset this conditional are described in §14 Unsetting and Resetting Entry Flags.
First use text

The text that is displayed on first use, which is governed by the first and firstplural keys of \newglossaryentry. (May be overridden by \glsdisp.)
Indexing application

An application (piece of software) separate from TEX/LATEX that collates and sorts information that has an associated page reference. Generally the information is an index entry but in this case the information is a glossary entry. There are two main indexing applications that are used with TEX: makeindex and xindy. These are both command line interface (CLI) applications.
Link text

The text produced by commands such as \gls. It may or may not be a hyperlink to the glossary.
Location list

A list of entry locations. (See number list.)
makeglossaries

A custom designed Perl script interface to xindy and makeindex provided with the glossaries package.
makeglossariesgui

A Java GUI alternative to makeglossaries that also provides diagnostic tools. Available separately on CTAN.
makeindex

An indexing application.
Number list

A list of entry locations (also called a location list). The number list can be suppressed using the nonumberlist package option.
Sanitize

Converts command names into character sequences. That is, a command called, say, \foo, is converted into the sequence of characters: \, f, o, o. Depending on the font, the backslash character may appear as a dash when used in the main document text, so \foo will appear as: —foo.

Earlier versions of glossaries used this technique to write information to the files used by the indexing applications to prevent problems caused by fragile commands. Now, this is only used for the sort key.

xindy

A flexible indexing application with multilingual support written in Perl.

1. Introduction

The glossaries package is provided to assist generating glossaries. It has a certain amount of flexibility, allowing the user to customize the format of the glossary and define multiple glossaries. It also supports acronyms and 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 used1.1 in the document will be added to the glossary.

This 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 can cover all the various settings. If you are daunted by the size of the manual, try starting off with the much shorter guide for beginners.

The glossaries package comes with a Perl script called makeglossaries. This provides a convenient interface to the indexing applications makeindex or xindy. It is strongly recommended that you use this script, but it is not essential. If you are reluctant to install Perl, or for any other reason you don’t want to use makeglossaries, you can call makeindex or xindy explicitly. See §1.3 Generating the Associated Glossary Files for further details.

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 what “xindy” is.

The remainder of this introductory section covers the following:

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1.1 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.

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 as follows1.2:

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. Run makeglossaries on the document (§1.3 Generating the Associated Glossary Files). This can be done on a terminal either by typing
    makeglossaries minimalgls

    or by typing
    perl makeglossaries minimalgls

    If your system doesn’t recognise the command perl then it’s likely you don’t have Perl installed. In which case you will need to use makeindex directly. 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 §1.3.3 Using makeindex explicitly for further details on using makeindex explicitly.)

    Note that if you need to specify the full path and the path contains spaces, you will need to delimit the file names with the double-quote character.

  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.

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

As before, if you don’t have Perl installed, you will need to use makeindex directly instead of using makeglossaries. 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 acronyms. 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

sampleAcrDesc.tex
This is similar to the previous example, except that the acronyms 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 acronyms 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 acronyms 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

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

The glossary definitions are stored in the accompanying files database1.tex and database2.tex. Note that if you don’t have Perl installed, you will need to use makeindex twice instead of a single call to makeglossaries:

  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

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 don’t have Perl installed, you will need to use makeindex twice instead of a single call to makeglossaries:

  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. 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, 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, you will have to call xindy explicitly instead of using makeglossaries. 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

otherwise, 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

If you can’t use makeglossaries then you need to do (all on one line):
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.

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

If you don’t have Perl installed, you will have to call xindy explicitly instead of using makeglossaries (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

you will see that the entries that start with a non-Latin character now appear in the symbols group, and the word “manœuvre” is now after “manor” instead of before it. If you are unable to use makeglossaries, the call to makeindex is as follows (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 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.
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 selective 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.

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1.2 Multi-Lingual Support

As from version 1.17, the glossaries package can now be used with xindy as well as makeindex. If you are writing in a language that uses accented characters or non-Latin characters it is recommended that you use xindy as makeindex is hard-coded for Latin languages. This means that 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:

\documentclass[frenchb]{article}  
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}  
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}  
\usepackage{babel}  
\usepackage[xindy]{glossaries}

Note that although an accented character, such as é, looks like a plain character in your tex file, it’s actually a macro and can therefore cause expansion problems. You may need to switch off the field expansions with \glsnoexpandfields.

If you use an accented (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) due to expansion issues. For example:

\newglossaryentry{elite}{name={{é}lite},  
description={select group or class}}

If you use the inputenc package, makeglossaries will pick up the encoding from the auxiliary file. 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.

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1.2.1 Changing the Fixed Names

As from version 1.08, the glossaries package now has limited multi-lingual support, thanks to all the people who have sent me the relevant translations either via email or via comp.text.tex. However you must load babel or polyglossia before glossaries to enable this. Note that if babel is loaded and the translator package is detected on TEX’s path, then the translator package will be loaded automatically, unless you use the translate=false or translate=babel package options. However, it may not pick up on the required languages so, if the predefined text is not translated, you may need to explicitly load the translator package with the required languages. For example:

\usepackage[spanish]{babel}  
\usepackage[spanish]{translator}  
\usepackage{glossaries}

Alternatively, specify the language as a class option rather than a package option. For example:

\documentclass[spanish]{report}  
\usepackage{babel}  
\usepackage{glossaries}

If you want to use ngerman or german instead of babel, you will need to include the translator package to provide the translations. For example:

\documentclass[ngerman]{article}  
\usepackage{ngerman}  
\usepackage{translator}  
\usepackage{glossaries}

The languages are currently supported by the glossaries package are listed in table 1.1. Please note that (apart from spelling mistakes) I don’t intend to change the default translations as it will cause compatibility problems.


Table 1.1: Supported Languages

Language As from version
Brazilian Portuguese 1.17
Danish 1.08
Dutch 1.08
English 1.08
French 1.08
German 1.08
Irish 1.08
Italian 1.08
Hungarian 1.08
Polish 1.13
Serbian 2.06
Spanish 1.08

The language dependent commands and translator keys used by the glossaries package are listed in table 1.2.


Table 1.2: Customised Text
Command Name

Translator Key Word

Purpose

\glossaryname

Glossary

Title of the main glossary.

\acronymname

Acronyms

Title of the list of acronyms (when used with package option acronym).

\entryname

Notation (glossaries)

Header for first column in the glossary (for 2, 3 or 4 column glossaries that support headers).

\descriptionname

Description (glossaries)

Header for second column in the glossary (for 2, 3 or 4 column glossaries that support headers).

\symbolname

Symbol (glossaries)

Header for symbol column in the glossary for glossary styles that support this option.

\pagelistname

Page List (glossaries)

Header for page list column in the glossary for glossaries that support this option.

\glssymbolsgroupname

Symbols (glossaries)

Header for symbols section of the glossary for glossary styles that support this option.

\glsnumbersgroupname

Numbers (glossaries)

Header for numbers section of the glossary for glossary styles that support this option.


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.

Note that the dictionaries are loaded at the beginning of the document, so it won’t have any effect if you put \deftranslation in the preamble. It should be put in your personal dictionary instead (as in the example below). See the translator documentation for further details. (Now with beamer documentation.)

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,

myinstitute-glossaries-dictionary-English.dict

that contains the following:

\ProvidesDictionary{myinstitute-glossaries-dictionary}{English}  
\deftranslation{Glossary}{Nomenclature}  
\deftranslation{Page List (glossaries)}{Location}

You can now load it using:

\usedictionary{myinstitute-glossaries-dictionary}

(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:

\documentclass[british]{article}  
\usepackage{babel}  
\usepackage[translate=babel]{glossaries}  
\addto\captionsbritish{%  
    \renewcommand*{\glossaryname}{List of Terms}%  
    \renewcommand*{\acronymname}{List of Acronyms}%  
}

If you are using polyglossia instead of babel, glossaries-polyglossia will automatically be loaded unless you specify the package option translate=false.

Note that xindy provides much better multi-lingual support than makeindex, so it’s recommended that you use xindy if you have glossary entries that contain diacritics or non-Roman letters. See §11 Xindy for further details.

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1.3 Generating the Associated Glossary Files

In order to generate a sorted glossary with compact number lists, it is necessary to use an external indexing application as an intermediate step. It is this application that creates the file containing the code that typesets 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. Note that xindy has much better multi-lingual support than makeindex, so xindy is recommended if you’re not writing in English. Commands that only have an effect when xindy is used are described in §11 Xindy.

This is a multi-stage process, but there are methods of automating document compilation using applications such as latexmk and arara. See http://www.dickimaw-_books.com/latex/thesis/html/build.html for more information.

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 §1.3.1 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. Further information is available at http://www.perl.org/about.html. The advantages of using makeglossaries:

There is also a Java GUI alternative called makeglossariesgui, distributed separately, that has diagnostic tools.

Whilst it is strongly recommended that you use the makeglossaries script or makeglossariesgui, it is possible to use the glossaries package without using either application. However, note that some commands and package options have no effect if you don’t use makeglossaries or makeglossariesgui. These are listed in table 1.3.

If you are choosing not to use makeglossaries because you don’t want to install Perl, you will only be able to use makeindex as xindy also requires Perl.

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:1.3

\newglossaryentry{citrusfruit}{name={citrus fruit},  
description={fruit of any citrus tree. (See also  
\gls{orange})}}  
\newglossaryentry{orange}{name={orange},  
description={an orange coloured fruit.}}

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

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. The article “Glossaries, Nomenclature, List of Symbols and Acronyms” in the LATEX Community’s Know How section describes how to do this for TeXnicCenter, and the thread “Executing Glossaries’ makeindex from a WinEdt macro” on the comp.text.tex newsgroup describes how to do it for WinEdt. Section 1.1 (Building Your Document) of “Using LATEX to Write a PhD Thesis” describes how to do it for TeXWorks. For other editors see the editor’s user manual for further details.

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


Table 1.3: Commands and package options that have no effect when using xindy or makeindex explicitly
Command or Package Option makeindex xindy
order=letter use -l use -M ord/letorder
order=word default default
xindy={language=<lang>,codename=<code>} N/A use -L <lang> -C <code>
\GlsSetXdyLanguage{<lang>} N/A use -L <lang>
\GlsSetXdyCodePage{<code>} N/A use -C <code>

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1.3.1 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

There is a batch file called makeglossaries.bat which does this for Windows users, but you must have Perl installed to be able to use it.1.4 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.

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.

When upgrading the glossaries package, make sure you also upgrade your version of makeglossaries. The current version is 2.12.

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1.3.2 Using xindy explicitly

Xindy comes with TeXLive, but not with MiKTeX. However MikTeX users can install it. 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:

\usepackage[xindy]{glossaries}

This is required regardless of whether you use xindy explicitly or whether it’s called implicitly via applications such as makeglossaries or makeglossariesgui. 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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1.3.3 Using makeindex explicitly

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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1.3.4 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


\@newglossary  \@newglossary{<label>}{<log>}{<out-ext>}{<in-ext>}

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:

\@newglossary{main}{glg}{gls}{glo}

The indexing application’s style file is specified by


\@istfilename  \@istfilename{<filename>}

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:


\@glsorder  \@glsorder{<order>}

where <order> can be either word or letter.

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


\@xdylanguage \@gls@codepage  \@xdylanguage{<label>}{<language>}
\@gls@codepage{<label>}{<code>}

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.

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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).

Note that <key>=<value> package options can’t be passed via the document class options. (This includes options where the <value> part may be omitted, such as acronym.) This is a general limitation not restricted to the glossaries package. Options that aren’t <key>=<value> (such as makeindex) may be passed via the document class options.

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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).
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 the following 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 is sanitizesort=true.)

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. If you run out of token registers, you can use etex.

This option can significantly slow document compilation. As an alternative, you can use the scrwfile package (part of the KOMA-Script bundle) and not use this option.

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

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 §1.2.1 Changing the Fixed Names for further details.

notranslate
This is equivalent to translate=false and may be passed via the document class options.
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*). Note that this applies to all glossary types. 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]

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.

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.)

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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 \@mkboth2.1 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 \MakeTextUppercase2.2. 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.

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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.

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.) 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, 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).
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).
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.

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2.4 Sorting Options

sort
This is a <key>=<value> option where the option can only have one of the following values:
  • 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).

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. 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)

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.

makeindex
(Default) 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.
xindy
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 for further details on using xindy with the glossaries package.

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

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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 the acronym package option is used, \acronymtype is set to acronym otherwise it is set to main.2.3 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.

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 for further details. Alternatively you can use:


\DefineAcronymShortcuts  \DefineAcronymShortcuts

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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 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}

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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>].

Remember to use the nomain package option if you’re only interested in using this symbols glossary.

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>].

Remember to use the nomain package option if you’re only interested in using this numbers glossary.

index
This option defines a new glossary type with the label index via
\newglossary[ilg]{index}{ind}{idx}{\indexname}%

It also defines


\printindex  \printindex[<options>]

which is a synonym for \printglossary[type=index,<options>] and


\newterm  \newterm[<options>]{<term>}

which is a synonym for

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

Remember to use the nomain package option if you’re only interested in using this index 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.

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.

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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


\setupglossaries  \setupglossaries{<key-val list>}

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 for further details).

I recommend you use this command as soon as possible after loading glossaries otherwise you might end up using it too late for the change to take effect. For example, if you try changing the acronym styles (such as smallcaps) after you have started defining your acronyms, you are likely to get unexpected results. If you try changing the sort option after you have started to define entries, you may get unexpected results.

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3. Setting Up

The command


\makeglossaries  \makeglossaries

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

Note that some of the commands provided by the glossaries package must be placed before \makeglossaries as they are required when creating the customised style file. If you attempt to use those commands after \makeglossaries you will generate an error.

Similarly, there are some commands that must be used after \makeglossaries.

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


\noist  \noist

Note that this command must be used before \makeglossaries.

Note that if you have a custom .xdy file created when using glossaries version 2.07 or below, you will need to use the compatible-2.07 package option with it.

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


\setStyleFile  \setStyleFile{<name>}

where <name> is the name of the style file without the extension. Note that this command must be used before \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


\glsSetCompositor  \glsSetCompositor{<symbol>}

For example:

\glsSetCompositor{-}

Note that this command must be used before \makeglossaries.

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


\glsSetAlphaCompositor  \glsSetAlphaCompositor{<symbol>}

Note that this command has no effect if you haven’t used the xindy package option. For example, if you want number lists containing a mixture of A-1 and 2.3 style formats, then do:

\glsSetCompositor{.}\glsSetAlphaCompositor{-}

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

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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.4.1 However only those entries that occur 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. Each time an entry is used in this way, a line is added to an associated glossary file (.glo), which then needs to be converted into a corresponding .gls file which contains the typeset glossary which is input by \printglossary or \printglossaries. The Perl script makeglossaries can be used to call makeindex or xindy, using a customised indexing style file, for each of the glossaries that are defined in the document. Note that there should be no need for you to explicitly edit or input any of these external files.4.2 See §1.3 Generating the Associated Glossary Files for further details.

New glossary entries are defined using the command:


\newglossaryentry  \newglossaryentry{<label>}{<key=value list>}

This is a short command, so values in <key-val list> can’t contain any paragraph breaks. If you have a long description that needs to span multiple paragraphs, use


\longnewglossaryentry  \longnewglossaryentry{<label>}{<key=value list>}{<long description>}

instead. Note that, unlike \newglossaryentry, the command \longnewglossaryentry 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).

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


\provideglossaryentry  \provideglossaryentry{<label>}{<key=value list>}

and

\longprovideglossaryentry 


\longprovideglossaryentry{<label>}{<key=value list>}{<long description>}

(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.

Note that although an accented character or other non-Latin character, such as é or ß, looks like a plain character in your .tex file, it’s actually a macro (an active character) and therefore can’t be used in the label. Also be careful of babel’s options that change certain punctuation characters (such as : or -) to active characters.

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. Available fields are listed below:

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.
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 makeindex or xindy should sort this entry. 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).
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).
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 (see §4.3 Additional Keys). Other keys are also provided by the glossaries-prefix (§17 Prefixes or Determiners) and glossaries-accsupp (§18 Accessibility Support) packages.
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.

\makeglossaries must be used before any occurrence of \newglossaryentry that contains the see key.

The following keys are reserved for \newacronym (see §13 Acronyms): long, longplural, short and shortplural. Additional keys are provided by the glossaries-prefix (§17 Prefixes or Determiners) and the glossaries-accsupp (§18 Accessibility Support) packages. You can also define your own custom keys (see §4.3 Additional Keys).

Note that if the name starts with an accented letter or other non-Latin character, you must group the character, otherwise it will cause a problem for commands like \Gls and \Glspl. For example:

\newglossaryentry{elite}{name={{\’e}lite},  
description={select group or class}}

Note that the same applies if you are using the inputenc package:

\newglossaryentry{elite}{name={{é}lite},  
description={select group or class}}

Note that in both of the above examples, you will also need to supply the sort key if you are using makeindex whereas xindy is usually able to sort accented letters correctly.

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4.1 Plurals

You may have noticed from above that you can specify the plural form when you define a term. If you omit this, the plural will be obtained by appending


\glspluralsuffix  \glspluralsuffix

to the singular form. This command defaults to the letter “s”. For example:

\newglossaryentry{cow}{name=cow,description={a fully grown  
female of any bovine animal}}

defines a new entry whose singular form is “cow” and plural form is “cows”. However, if you are writing in archaic English, you may want to use “kine” as the plural form, in which case you would have to do:

\newglossaryentry{cow}{name=cow,plural=kine,  
description={a fully grown female of any bovine animal}}

If you are writing in a language that supports multiple plurals (for a given term) then use the plural key for one of them and one of the user keys to specify the other plural form. For example:

\newglossaryentry{cow}{%  
  name=cow,%  
  description={a fully grown female of any bovine animal  
               (plural cows, archaic plural kine)},%  
  user1={kine}}

You can then use \glspl{cow} to produce “cows” and \glsuseri{cow} to produce “kine”. You can, of course, define an easy to remember synonym. For example:

\let\glsaltpl\glsuseri

Then you don’t have to remember which key you used to store the second plural. Alternatively, you can define your own keys using \glsaddkey, described in §4.3 Additional Keys.

If you are using a language that usually forms plurals by appending a different letter, or sequence of letters, you can redefine \glspluralsuffix as required. However, this must be done before the entries are defined. For languages that don’t form plurals by simply appending a suffix, all the plural forms must be specified using the plural key (and the firstplural key where necessary).

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4.2 Other Grammatical Constructs

You can use the six user keys to provide alternatives, such as participles. For example:

\let\glsing\glsuseri  
\let\glsd\glsuserii  
\newcommand*{\ingkey}{user1}  
\newcommand*{\edkey}{user2}  
\newcommand*{\newword}[3][]{%  
  \newglossaryentry{#2}{%  
   name={#2},%  
   description={#3},%  
   \edkey={#2ed},%  
   \ingkey={#2ing},#1%  
  }%  
}

With the above definitions, I can now define terms like this:

\newword{play}{to take part in activities for enjoyment}  
\newword[\edkey={ran},\ingkey={running}]{run}{to move fast using  
the legs}

and use them in the text:

Peter is \glsing{play} in the park today.  
Jane \glsd{play} in the park yesterday.  
Peter and Jane \glsd{run} in the park last week.

Alternatively, you can define your own keys using \glsaddkey, described below in §4.3 Additional Keys.

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4.3 Additional Keys

You can now also define your own custom keys using:


\glsaddkey  \glsaddkey{<key>}{<default value>}{<no link cs>}{<no link ucfirst cs>}{<link cs>}{<link ucfirst cs>}{<link allcaps cs>}

where:

<key>
is the new key to use in \newglossaryentry (or similar commands such as \longnewglossaryentry);
<default value>
is the default value to use if this key isn’t used in an entry definition (this may reference the current entry label via \glslabel, but you will have to switch on expansion via the starred version of \glsaddkey and protect fragile commands);
<no link cs>
is the control sequence to use analogous to commands like \glsentrytext;
<no link ucfirst cs>
is the control sequence to use analogous to commands like \Glsentrytext;
<link cs>
is the control sequence to use analogous to commands like \glstext;
<link ucfirst cs>
is the control sequence to use analogous to commands like \Glstext;
<link allcaps cs>
is the control sequence to use analogous to commands like \GLStext.

The starred version of \glsaddkey switches on expansion for this key. The unstarred version doesn’t override the current expansion setting.

Example 3 (Defining Custom Keys)

Suppose I want to define two new keys, ed and ing, that default to the entry text followed by “ed” and “ing”, respectively. The default value will need expanding in both cases, so I need to use the starred form:

 % Define "ed" key:  
 \glsaddkey*  
  {ed}% key  
  {\glsentrytext{\glslabel}ed}% default value  
  {\glsentryed}% command analogous to \glsentrytext  
  {\Glsentryed}% command analogous to \Glsentrytext  
  {\glsed}% command analogous to \glstext  
  {\Glsed}% command analogous to \Glstext  
  {\GLSed}% command analogous to \GLStext  
 % Define "ing" key:  
 \glsaddkey*  
  {ing}% key  
  {\glsentrytext{\glslabel}ing}% default value  
  {\glsentrying}% command analogous to \glsentrytext  
  {\Glsentrying}% command analogous to \Glsentrytext  
  {\glsing}% command analogous to \glstext  
  {\Glsing}% command analogous to \Glstext  
  {\GLSing}% command analogous to \GLStext

Now I can define some entries:

 % No need to override defaults for this entry:  
 \newglossaryentry{jump}{name={jump},description={}}  
 % Need to override defaults on these entries:  
 \newglossaryentry{run}{name={run},%  
   ed={ran},%  
   ing={running},%  
   description={}}  
 \newglossaryentry{waddle}{name={waddle},%  
   ed={waddled},%  
   ing={waddling},%  
   description={}}

These entries can later be used in the document:

The dog \glsed{jump} over the duck.  
The duck was \glsing{waddle} round the dog.  
The dog \glsed{run} away from the duck.

For a complete document, see the sample file sample-newkeys.tex.

____________________________

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4.4 Expansion

When you define new glossary entries expansion is performed by default, except for the name, description, descriptionplural, symbol, symbolplural and sort keys (these keys all have expansion suppressed via \glssetnoexpandfield).

You can switch expansion on or off for individual keys using


\glssetexpandfield  \glssetexpandfield{<field>}

or


\glssetnoexpandfield  \glssetnoexpandfield{<field>}

respectively, where <field> is the field tag corresponding to the key. In most cases, this is the same as the name of the key except for those listed in table 4.1.


Table 4.1: Key to Field Mappings
Key Field
sort sortvalue
firstplural firstpl
description desc
descriptionplural descplural
user1 useri
user2 userii
user3 useriii
user4 useriv
user5 userv
user6 uservi
longplural longpl
shortplural shortpl

Any keys that haven’t had the expansion explicitly set using \glssetexpandfield or \glssetnoexpandfield are governed by


\glsexpandfields  \glsexpandfields

and


\glsnoexpandfields  \glsnoexpandfields

If your entries contain any fragile commands, I recommend you switch off expansion via \glsnoexpandfields. (This should be used before you define the entries.)

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4.5 Sub-Entries

As from version 1.17, it is possible to specify sub-entries. These may be used to order the glossary into categories, in which case the sub-entry will have a different name to its parent entry, or it may be used to distinguish different definitions for the same word, in which case the sub-entries will have the same name as the parent entry. Note that not all glossary styles support hierarchical entries and may display all the entries in a flat format. Of the styles that support sub-entries, some display the sub-entry’s name whilst others don’t. Therefore you need to ensure that you use a suitable style. (See §15 Glossary Styles for a list of predefined styles.) As from version 3.0, level 1 sub-entries are automatically numbered in the predefined styles if you use the subentrycounter package option (see §2.3 Glossary Appearance Options for further details).

Note that the parent entry will automatically be added to the glossary if any of its child entries are used in the document. If the parent entry is not referenced in the document, it will not have a number list. Note also that makeindex has a restriction on the maximum sub-entry depth.

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4.5.1 Hierarchical Categories

To arrange a glossary with hierarchical categories, you need to first define the category and then define the sub-entries using the relevant category entry as the value of the parent key.

Example 4 (Hierarchical Categories—Greek and Roman Mathematical Symbols)

Suppose I want a glossary of mathematical symbols that are divided into Greek letters and Roman letters. Then I can define the categories as follows:

\newglossaryentry{greekletter}{name={Greek letters},  
description={\nopostdesc}}  
\newglossaryentry{romanletter}{name={Roman letters},  
description={\nopostdesc}}

Note that in this example, the category entries don’t need a description so I have set the descriptions to \nopostdesc. This gives a blank description and suppresses the description terminator.

I can now define my sub-entries as follows:

\newglossaryentry{pi}{name={\ensuremath{\pi}},sort={pi},  
description={ratio of the circumference of a circle to  
the diameter},  
parent=greekletter}  
\newglossaryentry{C}{name={\ensuremath{C}},sort={C},  
description={Euler’s constant},  
parent=romanletter}

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

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4.5.2 Homographs

Sub-entries that have the same name as the parent entry, don’t need to have the name key. For example, the word “glossary” can mean a list of technical words or a collection of glosses. In both cases the plural is “glossaries”. So first define the parent entry:

\newglossaryentry{glossary}{name=glossary,  
description={\nopostdesc},  
plural={glossaries}}

Again, the parent entry has no description, so the description terminator needs to be suppressed using \nopostdesc.

Now define the two different meanings of the word:

\newglossaryentry{glossarylist}{  
description={list of technical words},  
sort={1},  
parent={glossary}}  
\newglossaryentry{glossarycol}{  
description={collection of glosses},  
sort={2},  
parent={glossary}}

Note that if I reference the parent entry, the location will be added to the parent’s number list, whereas if I reference any of the child entries, the location will be added to the child entry’s number list. Note also that since the sub-entries have the same name, the sort key is required unless you are using the sort=use or sort=def package options (see §2.4 Sorting Options). You can use the subentrycounter package option to automatically number the first-level child entries. See §2.3 Glossary Appearance Options for further details.

In the above example, the plural form for both of the child entries is the same as the parent entry, so the plural key was not required for the child entries. However, if the sub-entries have different plurals, they will need to be specified. For example:

\newglossaryentry{bravo}{name={bravo},  
description={\nopostdesc}}  
\newglossaryentry{bravocry}{description={cry of approval  
(pl.\ bravos)},  
sort={1},  
plural={bravos},  
parent=bravo}  
\newglossaryentry{bravoruffian}{description={hired  
ruffian or killer (pl.\ bravoes)},  
sort={2},  
plural={bravoes},  
parent=bravo}

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4.6 Loading Entries From a File

You can store all your glossary entry definitions in another file and use:


\loadglsentries  \loadglsentries[<type>]{<filename>}

where <filename> is the name of the file containing all the \newglossaryentry or \longnewglossaryentry commands. The optional argument <type> is the name of the glossary to which those entries should belong, for those entries where the type key has been omitted (or, more specifically, for those entries whose type has been specified by \glsdefaulttype, which is what \newglossaryentry uses by default).

Example 5 (Loading Entries from Another File)

Suppose I have a file called myentries.tex which contains:

\newglossaryentry{perl}{type=main,  
name={Perl},  
description={A scripting language}}  
\newglossaryentry{tex}{name={\TeX},  
description={A typesetting language},sort={TeX}}  
\newglossaryentry{html}{type=\glsdefaulttype,  
name={html},  
description={A mark up language}}

and suppose in my document preamble I use the command:

\loadglsentries[languages]{myentries}

then this will add the entries tex and html to the glossary whose type is given by languages, but the entry perl will be added to the main glossary, since it explicitly sets the type to main.

____________________________

Note: if you use \newacronym (see §13 Acronyms) the type is set as type=\acronymtype unless you explicitly override it. For example, if my file myacronyms.tex contains:

\newacronym{aca}{aca}{a contrived acronym}

then (supposing I have defined a new glossary type called altacronym)

\loadglsentries[altacronym]{myacronyms}

will add aca to the glossary type acronym, if the package option acronym has been specified, or will add aca to the glossary type altacronym, if the package option acronym is not specified.4.3

If you have used the acronym package option, there are two possible solutions to this problem:

  1. Change myacronyms.tex so that entries are defined in the form:
    \newacronym[type=\glsdefaulttype]{aca}{aca}{a  
    contrived acronym}

    and do:

    \loadglsentries[altacronym]{myacronyms}

  2. Temporarily change \acronymtype to the target glossary:
    \let\orgacronymtype\acronymtype  
    \renewcommand{\acronymtype}{altacronym}  
    \loadglsentries{myacronyms}  
    \let\acronymtype\orgacronymtype

Note that only those entries that have been used in the text will appear in the relevant glossaries. Note also that \loadglsentries may only be used in the preamble.

Remember that you can use \provideglossaryentry rather than \newglossaryentry. Suppose you want to maintain a large database of acronyms or terms that you’re likely to use in your documents, but you may want to use a modified version of some of those entries. (Suppose, for example, one document may require a more detailed description.) Then if you define the entries using \provideglossaryentry in your database file, you can override the definition by simply using \newglossaryentry before loading the file. For example, suppose your file (called, say, terms.tex) contains:

\provideglossaryentry{mallard}{name=mallard,  
 description={a type of duck}}

but suppose your document requires a more detailed description, you can do:

\usepackage{glossaries}  
\makeglossaries  
\newglossaryentry{mallard}{name=mallard,  
 description={a dabbling duck where the male has a green head}}  
\loadglsentries{terms}

Now the mallard definition in the terms.tex file will be ignored.

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4.7 Moving Entries to Another Glossary

As from version 3.02, you can move an entry from one glossary to another using:


\glsmoveentry  \glsmoveentry{<label>}{<target glossary label>}

where <label> is the unique label identifying the required entry and <target glossary label> is the unique label identifying the glossary in which to put the entry.

Note that no check is performed to determine the existence of the target glossary. This means that you can, for example, move an entry to an undefined glossary so you can use the entry in the document text but not have it listed in any of the glossaries. (Maybe you have an acronym that is so common it doesn’t need listing.)

If you move an entry to an undefined glossary and you have hyperlinked entries, the link will point to an undefined target. (Unless you identify that glossary using nohypertypes or \GlsDeclareNoHyperList, as described in §6 Links to Glossary Entries.) Also, you will get warnings about no file defined for that glossary (unless you use the nowarn package option). Unpredictable results may occur if you move an entry to a different glossary from its parent or children.

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4.8 Drawbacks With Defining Entries in the Document Environment

Originally, \newglossaryentry (and \newacronym) could only be used in the preamble. I reluctantly removed this restriction in version 1.13, but there are issues with defining commands in the document environment instead of the preamble.

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4.8.1 Technical Issues

  1. If you define an entry mid-way through your document, but subsequently shuffle sections around, you could end up using an entry before it has been defined.
  2. Entry information is required when the glossary is displayed using \printglossary or \printglossaries. When either of these commands occur at the start of the document, the entry details are being looked up before the entry has been defined.

To overcome these problems, as from version 4.0 the glossaries package modifies the definition of \newglossaryentry at the beginning of the document environment so that the definitions are written to an external file (\jobname.glsdefs) which is then read in at the start of the document on the next run. The entry will then only be defined if it doesn’t already exist. This means that the entry can now be looked up in the glossary, even if the glossary occurs at the beginning of the document.

There are drawbacks to this mechanism: if you modify an entry definition, you need a second run to see the effect of your modification; this method requires an extra \newwrite, which may exceed TEX’s maximum allocation; if you have very long entries, you could find unexpected line breaks have been written to the temporary file.

The last reason is why \longnewglossaryentry has the preamble-only restriction, which I don’t intend to lift.

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4.8.2 Good Practice Issues

The above section covers technical issues that can cause your document to have compilation errors or produce incorrect output. This section focuses on good writing practice. The main reason cited by users wanting to define entries within the document environment rather than in the preamble is that they want to write the definition as they type in their document text. This suggests a “stream of consciousness” style of writing that may be acceptable in certain literary genres but is inappropriate for factual documents.

When you write technical documents, regardless of whether it’s a PhD thesis or an article for a journal or proceedings, you must plan what you write in advance. If you plan in advance, you should have a fairly good idea of the type of terminology that your document will contain, so while you are planning, create a new file with all your entry definitions. If, while you’re writing your document, you remember another term you need, then you can switch over to your definition file and add it. Most text editors have the ability to have more than one file open at a time.

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5. Number lists

Each entry in the glossary has an associated number list. By default, these numbers refer to the pages on which that entry has been used (using any of the commands described in §6 Links to Glossary Entries and §7 Adding an Entry to the Glossary Without Generating Text). The number list can be suppressed using the nonumberlist package option, or an alternative counter can be set as the default using the counter package option. The number list is also referred to as the location list.

Both makeindex and xindy concatenate a sequence of 3 or more consecutive pages into a range. With xindy you can vary the minimum sequence length using \GlsSetXdyMinRangeLength{<n>} where <n> is either an integer or the keyword none which indicates that there should be no range formation.

Note that \GlsSetXdyMinRangeLength must be used before \makeglossaries and has no effect if \noist is used.

With both makeindex and xindy, you can replace the separator and the closing number in the range using:


\glsSetSuffixF  \glsSetSuffixF{<suffix>}


\glsSetSuffixFF  \glsSetSuffixFF{<suffix>}

where the former command specifies the suffix to use for a 2 page list and the latter specifies the suffix to use for longer lists. For example:

\glsSetSuffixF{f.}  
\glsSetSuffixFF{ff.}

Note that if you use xindy, you will also need to set the minimum range length to 1 if you want to change these suffixes:

\GlsSetXdyMinRangeLength{1}

Note that if you use the hyperref package, you will need to use \nohyperpage in the suffix to ensure that the hyperlinks work correctly. For example:

\glsSetSuffixF{\nohyperpage{f.}}  
\glsSetSuffixFF{\nohyperpage{ff.}}

Note that \glsSetSuffixF and \glsSetSuffixFF must be used before \makeglossaries and have no effect if \noist is used.

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6. Links to Glossary Entries

Once you have defined a glossary entry using \newglossaryentry, you can refer to that entry in the document using one of the commands listed in this section. The text which appears at that point in the document when using one of these commands is referred to as the link text (even if there are no hyperlinks). The commands in this section also add a line to an external file that is used by makeindex or xindy to generate the relevant entry in the glossary. This information includes an associated location that is added to the number list for that entry. By default, the location refers to the page number. For further information on number lists, see §5 Number lists.

It is strongly recommended that you don’t use the commands defined in this section in the arguments of sectioning or caption commands or any other command that has a moving argument.

The above warning is particularly important if you are using the glossaries package in conjunction with the hyperref package. Instead, use one of the expandable commands listed in §9 Using Glossary Terms Without Links (such as \glsentrytext but not the non-expandable case changing versions like \Glsentrytext) or provide an alternative via the optional argument to the sectioning/caption command. Examples:

\chapter{An overview of \glsentrytext{perl}}  
\chapter[An overview of Perl]{An overview of \gls{perl}}

If you want the link text to produce a hyperlink to the corresponding entry details in the glossary, you should load the hyperref package before the glossaries package. That’s what I’ve done in this document, so if you see a hyperlinked term, such as link text, you can click on the word or phrase and it will take you to a brief description in this document’s glossary.

If you use the hyperref package, I strongly recommend you use pdflatex rather than latex to compile your document, if possible. The DVI format of LATEX has limitations with the hyperlinks that can cause a problem when used with the glossaries package. Firstly, the DVI format can’t break a hyperlink across a line whereas PDFLATEX can. This means that long glossary entries (for example, the full form of an acronym) won’t be able to break across a line with the DVI format. Secondly, the DVI format doesn’t correctly size hyperlinks in subscripts or superscripts. This means that if you define a term that may be used as a subscript or superscript, if you use the DVI format, it won’t come out the correct size.

It may be that you only want terms in a certain glossary to have links, but not for another glossary. In which case, you can use the package option nohypertypes to identify the glossary lists that shouldn’t have hyperlinked link text. For example, suppose your document contains lots of technical acronyms that the reader might not know, but it also contains some very common acronyms that most readers will recognise. So you might want two acronym lists, but only the technical list will get displayed in your document. The technical acronyms can be hyperlinked to that list, but common acronyms shouldn’t have hyperlinks as there’s no target for them. In this case, identify the common acronym list as having non-hyperlinked entries using nohypertypes. Example:

\usepackage[acronym,nohypertypes={common}]{glossaries}  
\newglossary{common}{cacr}{cacn}{Common Acronyms}

Alternatively, you can use


\GlsDeclareNoHyperList  \GlsDeclareNoHyperList{<type>}

For example:

\usepackage[acronym]{glossaries}  
\newglossary{common}{cacr}{cacn}{Common Acronyms}  
\GlsDeclareNoHyperList{common}

Note that no check is performed to see if the glossary types listed in nohypertypes or \GlsDeclareNoHyperList have been defined.

The values must be fully expanded, so don’t try nohypertypes=\acronymtype or \GlsDeclareNoHyperList{\acronymtype}. Also, avoid unnecessary braces. For example, \GlsDeclareNoHyperList{{acronym},{common}} won’t work. You do however need an enclosing brace for the whole list when using the package option. So

\usepackage[nohypertypes={acronym,common}]{glossaries}

is correct, but nohypertypes={{acronym},{common}} won’t work.

You can override the effect of nohypertypes or \GlsDeclareNoHyperList by explicitly setting the hyper option in commands such as \glslink or \gls.

The way the link text is displayed depends on


\glstextformat  \glstextformat{<text>}

For example, to make all link text appear in a sans-serif font, do:

\renewcommand*{\glstextformat}[1]{\textsf{#1}}

Further customisation can be done via \defglsentryfmt or by redefining \glsentryfmt. See §6.1 Changing the format of the link text for further details.

Each entry has an associated conditional referred to as the first use flag. This determines whether \gls or \glspl (or their upper case variants) should use the value of the first/firstplural or text/plural keys. Note that an entry can be used without affecting the first use flag (for example, when used with \glslink). See §14 Unsetting and Resetting Entry Flags for commands that unset or reset this conditional.

The command:


\glslink  \glslink[<options>]{<label>}{<text>}

will place \glstextformat{<text>} in the document at that point and add a line into the associated glossary file for the glossary entry given by <label>. If hyperlinks are supported, <text> will be a hyperlink to the relevant line in the glossary. (Note that this command doesn’t affect the first use flag: use \glsdisp instead.) The optional argument <options> must be a <key>=<value> list which can take any of the following keys:

format
This specifies how to format the associated location number for this entry in the glossary. This value is equivalent to the makeindex encap value, and (as with \index) the value needs to be the name of a command without the initial backslash. As with \index, the characters ( and ) can also be used to specify the beginning and ending of a number range. Again as with \index, the command should be the name of a command which takes an argument (which will be the associated location). Be careful not to use a declaration (such as bfseries) instead of a text block command (such as textbf) as the effect is not guaranteed to be localised. If you want to apply more than one style to a given entry (e.g. bold and italic) you will need to create a command that applies both formats, e.g. 
\newcommand*{\textbfem}[1]{\textbf{\emph{#1}}}

and use that command.

In this document, the standard formats refer to the standard text block commands such as \textbf or \emph or any of the commands listed in table 6.1.

If you use xindy instead of makeindex, you must specify any non-standard formats that you want to use with the format key using \GlsAddXdyAttribute{<name>}. So if you use xindy with the above example, you would need to add:

\GlsAddXdyAttribute{textbfem}

See §11 Xindy for further details.

Note that unlike \index, you can’t have anything following the command name, such as an asterisk or arguments. If you want to cross-reference another entry, either use the see key when you define the entry or use \glssee (described in §8 Cross-Referencing Entries).

If you are using hyperlinks and you want to change the font of the hyperlinked location, don’t use \hyperpage (provided by the hyperref package) as the locations may not refer to a page number. Instead, the glossaries package provides number formats listed in table 6.1.


Table 6.1: Predefined Hyperlinked Location Formats
hyperrm serif hyperlink
hypersf sans-serif hyperlink
hypertt monospaced hyperlink
hyperbf bold hyperlink
hypermd medium weight hyperlink
hyperit italic hyperlink
hypersl slanted hyperlink
hyperup upright hyperlink
hypersc small caps hyperlink
hyperemph emphasized hyperlink

Note that if the \hyperlink command hasn’t been defined, the hyper<xx> formats are equivalent to the analogous text<xx> font commands (and hyperemph is equivalent to emph). If you want to make a new format, you will need to define a command which takes one argument and use that. For example, if you want the location number to be in a bold sans-serif font, you can define a command called, say, \hyperbsf:

\newcommand{\hyperbsf}[1]{\textbf{\hypersf{#1}}}

and then use hyperbsf as the value for the format key. (See also “Displaying the glossary” in the documented code, glossaries-code.pdf.) Remember that if you use xindy, you will need to add this to the list of location attributes:

\GlsAddXdyAttribute{hyperbsf}

counter
This specifies which counter to use for this location. This overrides the default counter used by this entry. (See also §5 Number lists.)
hyper
This is a boolean key which can be used to enable/disable the hyperlink to the relevant entry in the glossary. (Note that setting hyper=true will have no effect if \hyperlink has not been defined.) The default value is hyper=true, unless the entry belongs to a glossary that either has been listed in the package option nohypertypes or has been identified using \GlsDeclareNoHyperList in which case the default is hyper=false.
local
This is a boolean key that only makes a different when used with commands that change the entry’s first use flag (such as \gls). If local=true, the change to the first use flag will be localised to the current scope. The default is local=false.

There is also a starred version:


\glslink*  \glslink*[<options>]{<label>}{<text>}

which is equivalent to \glslink, except it sets hyper=false. Similarly, all the following commands described in this section also have a starred version that disables the hyperlink.

Don’t use commands like \glslink or \gls in the <text> argument of \glslink.

The command:


\gls  \gls[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

is the same as \glslink, except that the link text is determined from the values of the text and first keys supplied when the entry was defined using \newglossaryentry. If the entry has been marked as having been used, the value of the text key will be used, otherwise the value of the first key will be used. On completion, \gls will mark the entry’s first use flag as used.

There are two upper case variants:


\Gls  \Gls[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

and


\GLS  \GLS[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

which make the first letter of the link text or all the link text upper case, respectively.

The final optional argument <insert>, allows you to insert some additional text into the link text. By default, this will append <insert> at the end of the link text, but this can be changed (see §6.1 Changing the format of the link text).

The first optional argument <options> is the same as the optional argument to \glslink. As with \glslink, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.

Don’t use commands like \glslink or \gls in the <insert> argument of \gls and its variants.

There are also analogous plural forms:


\glspl  \glspl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]


\Glspl  \Glspl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]


\GLSpl  \GLSpl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

These determine the link text from the plural and firstplural keys supplied when the entry was first defined. As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.

Be careful when you use glossary entries in math mode especially if you are using hyperref as it can affect the spacing of subscripts and superscripts. For example, suppose you have defined the following entry:

\newglossaryentry{Falpha}{name={F_\alpha},  
description=sample}

and later you use it in math mode:

$\gls{Falpha}^2$

This will result in Fα2 instead of Fα2. In this situation it’s best to bring the superscript into the hyperlink using the final <insert> optional argument:

$\gls{Falpha}[^2]$

Note that \glslink doesn’t use or affect the first use flag, nor does it use \glsentryfmt or the equivalent definition provided by \defglsentryfmt (see §6.1 Changing the format of the link text). Instead, you can use:


\glsdisp  \glsdisp[<options>]{<label>}{<link text>}

This behaves in the same way as \gls, except that it uses <link text> instead of the value of the first or text key. (Note that this command always sets <insert> to nothing.) This command affects the first use flag, and uses \glsentryfmt or the equivalent definition provided by \defglsentryfmt.

The command:


\glstext  \glstext[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

is similar to \gls except that it always uses the value of the text key and does not affect the first use flag. Unlike \gls, the inserted text <insert> is always appended to the link text since \glstext doesn’t use \glsentryfmt or the equivalent definition provided by \defglsentryfmt. (The same is true for all the following commands described in the rest of this section.)

There are also analogous commands:


\Glstext  \Glstext[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLStext  \GLStext[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]

As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.

The command:


\glsfirst  \glsfirst[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

is similar to \glstext except that it always uses the value of the first key. Again, <insert> is always appended to the end of the link text and does not affect the first use flag.

There are also analogous commands:


\Glsfirst  \Glsfirst[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLSfirst  \GLSfirst[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]

As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.

The command:


\glsplural  \glsplural[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

is similar to \glstext except that it always uses the value of the plural key. Again, <insert> is always appended to the end of the link text and does not mark the entry as having been used.

There are also analogous commands:


\Glsplural  \Glsplural[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLSplural  \GLSplural[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]

As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.

The command:


\glsfirstplural  \glsfirstplural[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

is similar to \glstext except that it always uses the value of the firstplural key. Again, <insert> is always appended to the end of the link text and does not mark the entry as having been used.

There are also analogous commands:


\Glsfirstplural  \Glsfirstplural[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLSfirstplural  \GLSfirstplural[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]

As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.

The command:


\glsname  \glsname[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

is similar to \glstext except that it always uses the value of the name key. Again, <insert> is always appended to the end of the link text and does not mark the entry as having been used.

There are also analogous commands:


\Glsname  \Glsname[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLSname  \GLSname[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]

As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.

The command:


\glssymbol  \glssymbol[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

is similar to \glstext except that it always uses the value of the symbol key. Again, <insert> is always appended to the end of the link text and does not mark the entry as having been used.

There are also analogous commands:


\Glssymbol  \Glssymbol[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLSsymbol  \GLSsymbol[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]

As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.

The command:


\glsdesc  \glsdesc[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

is similar to \glstext except that it always uses the value of the description key. Again, <insert> is always appended to the end of the link text and does not mark the entry as having been used.

There are also analogous commands:


\Glsdesc  \Glsdesc[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLSdesc  \GLSdesc[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]

As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.

The command:


\glsuseri  \glsuseri[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

is similar to \glstext except that it always uses the value of the user1 key. Again, <insert> is always appended to the end of the link text and does not mark the entry as having been used.

There are also analogous commands:


\Glsuseri  \Glsuseri[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLSuseri  \GLSuseri[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]

As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink. Similarly for the other user keys:


\glsuserii  \glsuserii[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\Glsuserii  \Glsuserii[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLSuserii  \GLSuserii[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\glsuseriii  \glsuseriii[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\Glsuseriii  \Glsuseriii[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLSuseriii  \GLSuseriii[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\glsuseriv  \glsuseriv[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\Glsuseriv  \Glsuseriv[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLSuseriv  \GLSuseriv[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\glsuserv  \glsuserv[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\Glsuserv  \Glsuserv[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLSuserv  \GLSuserv[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\glsuservi  \glsuservi[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\Glsuservi  \Glsuservi[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]


\GLSuservi  \GLSuservi[<options>]{<text>}[<insert>]

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6.1 Changing the format of the link text

The default format of the link text for \gls, \glspl and their upper case variants and also for \glsdisp is governed by6.1:


\glsentryfmt  \glsentryfmt

This may be redefined but if you only want the change the display style for a given glossary, then you need to use


\defglsentryfmt  \defglsentryfmt[<type>]{<definition>}

instead of redefining \glsentryfmt. The optional first argument <type> is the glossary type. This defaults to \glsdefaulttype if omitted. The second argument is the entry format definition.

Note that \glsentryfmt is the default display format for entries. Once the display format has been changed for an individual glossary using \defglsentryfmt, redefining \glsentryfmt won’t have an effect on that glossary, you must instead us \defglsentryfmt again. Note that glossaries that have been identified as lists of acronyms (via the package option acronymlists or the command \DeclareAcronymList, see §2.5 Acronym Options) use \defglsentryfmt to set their display style.

Within the <definition> argument of \defglsentryfmt, or if you want to redefine \glsentryfmt, you may use the following commands:


\glslabel  \glslabel

This is the label of the entry being referenced.


\glscustomtext  \glscustomtext

This is the custom text supplied in \glsdisp. It’s always empty for \gls, \glspl and their upper case variants. (You can use etoolbox’s \ifdefempty to determine if \glscustomtext is empty.)


\glsinsert  \glsinsert

The custom text supplied in the final optional argument to \gls, \glspl and their upper case variants.


\glsifplural  \glsifplural{<true text>}{<false text>}

If \glspl, \Glspl or \GLSpl was used, this command does <true text> otherwise it does <false text>.


\glscapscase  \glscapscase{<no case>}{<first uc>}{<all caps>}

If \gls, \glspl or \glsdisp were used, this does <no case>. If \Gls or \Glspl were used, this does <first uc>. If \GLS or \GLSpl were used, this does <all caps>.

Note that you can also use commands such as \ifglsused within the definition of \glsentryfmt (see §14 Unsetting and Resetting Entry Flags).

If you only want to make minor modifications to \glsentryfmt, you can use


\glsgenentryfmt  \glsgenentryfmt

This uses the above commands to display just the first, text, plural or firstplural keys (or the custom text) with the insert text appended.

Alternatively, if want to change the entry format for acronyms (defined via \newacronym) you can use:


\glsgenacfmt  \glsgenacfmt

This uses the values from the long, short, longplural and shortplural keys, rather than using the text, plural, first and firstplural keys. The first use singular text is obtained via:


\genacrfullformat  \genacrfullformat{<label>}{<insert>}

instead of from the first key, and the first use plural text is obtained via:


\genplacrfullformat  \genplacrfullformat{<label>}{<insert>}

instead of from the firstplural key. In both cases, <label> is the entry’s label and <insert> is the insert text provided in the final optional argument of commands like \gls. The default behaviour is to do the long form (or plural long form) followed by <insert> and a space and the short form (or plural short form) in parentheses, where the short form is in the argument of \firstacronymfont. There are also first letter upper case versions:


\Genacrfullformat  \Genacrfullformat{<label>}{<insert>}

and


\Genplacrfullformat  \Genplacrfullformat{<label>}{<insert>}

By default these perform a protected expansion on their no-case-change equivalents and then use \makefirstuc to convert the first character to upper case. If there are issues caused by this expansion, you will need to redefine those commands to explicitly use commands like \Glsentrylong (which is what the predefined acronym styles, such as long-short, do). Otherwise, you only need to redefine \genacrfullformat and \genplacrfullformat to change the behaviour of \glsgenacfmt. See §13 Acronyms for further details on changing the style of acronyms.

Note that \glsentryfmt is not used by \glslink or any of the other commands, such as \glstext.

Example 6 (Custom Entry Display in Text)

Suppose you want a glossary of measurements and units, you can use the symbol key to store the unit:

\newglossaryentry{distance}{name=distance,  
description={The length between two points},  
symbol={km}}

and now suppose you want \gls{distance} to produce “distance (km)” on first use, then you can redefine \glsentryfmt as follows:

\renewcommand*{\glsentryfmt}{%  
  \glsgenentryfmt  
  \ifglsused{\glslabel}{}{\space (\glsentrysymbol{\glslabel})}%  
}

(Note that I’ve used \glsentrysymbol rather than \glssymbol to avoid nested hyperlinks.)

Note also that all of the link text will be formatted according to \glstextformat (described earlier). So if you do, say:

\renewcommand{\glstextformat}[1]{\textbf{#1}}  
\renewcommand*{\glsentryfmt}{%  
  \glsgenentryfmt  
  \ifglsused{\glslabel}{}{\space(\glsentrysymbol{\glslabel})}%  
}

then \gls{distance} will produce “distance (km)”.

For a complete document, see the sample file sample-entryfmt.tex.

____________________________

Example 7 (Custom Format for Particular Glossary)

Suppose you have created a new glossary called notation and you want to change the way the entry is displayed on first use so that it includes the symbol, you can do:

\defglsentryfmt[notation]{\glsgenentryfmt  
 \ifglsused{\glslabel}{}{\space  
   (denoted \glsentrysymbol{\glslabel})}}

Now suppose you have defined an entry as follows:

\newglossaryentry{set}{type=notation,  
  name=set,  
  description={A collection of objects},  
  symbol={$S$}  
}

The first time you reference this entry it will be displayed as: “set (denoted S)” (assuming \gls was used).

Alternatively, if you expect all the symbols to be set in math mode, you can do:

\defglsentryfmt[notation]{\glsgenentryfmt  
 \ifglsused{\glslabel}{}{\space  
   (denoted $\glsentrysymbol{\glslabel}$)}}

and define entries like this:

\newglossaryentry{set}{type=notation,  
  name=set,  
  description={A collection of objects},  
  symbol={S}  
}

____________________________

Remember that if you use the symbol key, you need to use a glossary style that displays the symbol, as many of the styles ignore it.

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6.2 Enabling and disabling hyperlinks to glossary entries

If you load the hyperref or html packages prior to loading the glossaries package, commands such as \glslink and \gls, described above, will automatically have hyperlinks to the relevant glossary entry, unless the hyper option has been set to false. You can disable or enable links using:


\glsdisablehyper  \glsdisablehyper

and


\glsenablehyper  \glsenablehyper

respectively. The effect can be localised by placing the commands within a group. Note that you should only use \glsenablehyper if the commands \hyperlink and \hypertarget have been defined (for example, by the hyperref package).

You can disable just the first use links using the package option hyperfirst=false. Note that this option only affects commands that recognise the first use flag, for example \gls, \glspl and \glsdisp but not \glslink.

Example 8 (First Use With Hyperlinked Footnote Description)

Suppose I want the first use to have a hyperlink to the description in a footnote instead of hyperlinking to the relevant place in the glossary. First I need to disable the hyperlinks on first use via the package option hyperfirst=false:

\usepackage[hyperfirst=false]{glossaries}

Now I need to redefine \glsentryfmt (see §6.1 Changing the format of the link text):

\renewcommand*{\glsentryfmt}{%  
  \glsgenentryfmt  
  \ifglsused{\glslabel}{}{\footnote{\glsentrydesc{\glslabel}}}%  
}

Now the first use won’t have hyperlinked text, but will be followed by a footnote. See the sample file sample-FnDesc.tex for a complete document.

____________________________

Note that the hyperfirst option applies to all defined glossaries. It may be that you only want to disable the hyperlinks on first use for glossaries that have a different form on first use. This can be achieved by noting that since the entries that require hyperlinking for all instances have identical first and subsequent text, they can be unset via \glsunsetall (see §14 Unsetting and Resetting Entry Flags) so that the hyperfirst option doesn’t get applied.

Example 9 (Suppressing Hyperlinks on First Use Just For Acronyms)

Suppose I want to suppress the hyperlink on first use for acronyms but not for entries in the main glossary. I can load the glossaries package using:

\usepackage[hyperfirst=false,acronym]{glossaries}

Once all glossary entries have been defined I then do:

\glsunsetall[main]

____________________________

For more complex requirements, you might find it easier to switch off all hyperlinks via \glsdisablehyper and put the hyperlinks (where required) within the definition of \glsentryfmt (see §6.1 Changing the format of the link text) via \glshyperlink (see §9 Using Glossary Terms Without Links).

Example 10 (Only Hyperlink in Text Mode Not Math Mode)

This is a bit of a contrived example, but suppose, for some reason, I only want commands like \gls and \glsdisp to have hyperlinks when used in text mode, but not in math mode. I can do this by disabling all hyperlinks and redefining \glsentryfmt:

\glsdisablehyper  
\renewcommand*{\glsentryfmt}{%  
  \ifmmode  
    \glsgenentryfmt  
  \else  
    % Temporarily enable hyperlinks:  
    \glsenablehyper  
    \glshyperlink[\glsgenentryfmt]{\glslabel}%  
    % Disable hyperlinks again  
    \glsdisablehyper  
  \fi  
}

To ensure the target exists, the hyperlinks must be enabled again when the glossary is displayed:

\renewcommand{\glossarypreamble}{\glsenablehyper}  
\renewcommand{\glossarypostamble}{\glsdisablehyper}

(The redefinition of \glossarypostamble is only necessary if the glossary is displayed at the start of the document instead of at the end.) See the sample file sample-nomathhyper.tex for a complete document.

____________________________

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7. Adding an Entry to the Glossary Without Generating Text

It is possible to add a line in the glossary file without generating any text at that point in the document using:


\glsadd  \glsadd[<options>]{<label>}

This is similar to \glslink, only it doesn’t produce any text (so therefore, there is no hyper key available in <options> but all the other options that can be used with \glslink can be passed to \glsadd). For example, to add a page range to the glossary number list for the entry whose label is given by set:

\glsadd[format=(]{set}  
Lots of text about sets spanning many pages.  
\glsadd[format=)]{set}

To add all entries that have been defined, use:


\glsaddall  \glsaddall[<options>]

The optional argument is the same as for \glsadd, except there is also a key types which can be used to specify which glossaries to use. This should be a comma separated list. For example, if you only want to add all the entries belonging to the list of acronyms (specified by the glossary type \acronymtype) and a list of notation (specified by the glossary type notation) then you can do:

\glsaddall[types={\acronymtype,notation}]

Note that \glsadd and \glsaddall add the current location to the number list. In the case of \glsaddall, all entries in the glossary will have the same location in the number list. If you want to use \glsaddall, it’s best to suppress the number list with the nonumberlist package option. (See sections 2.3 and 5.)

There is now a variation of \glsaddall that skips any entries that have already been used:


\glsaddallunused  \glsaddallunused[<list>]

This command uses \glsadd[format=@gobble] which will ignore this location in the number list. The optional argument <list> is a comma-separated list of glossary types. If omitted, it defaults to the list of all defined glossaries.

Example 11 (Dual Entries)

The example file sample-dual.tex makes use of \glsadd to allow for an entry that should appear both in the main glossary and in the list of acronyms. This example sets up the list of acronyms using the acronym package option:

\usepackage[acronym]{glossaries}

A new command is then defined to make it easier to define dual entries:

\newcommand*{\newdualentry}[5][]{%  
  \newglossaryentry{main-#2}{name={#4},%  
  text={#3\glsadd{#2}},%  
  description={#5},%  
  #1  
  }%  
  \newacronym{#2}{#3\glsadd{main-#2}}{#4}%  
}

This has the following syntax:

\newdualentry[<options>]{<label>}{<abbrv>}{<long>}{<description>}
You can then define a new dual entry:
\newdualentry{svm}% label  
  {SVM}% abbreviation  
  {support vector machine}% long form  
  {Statistical pattern recognition technique}% description

Now you can reference the acronym with \gls{svm} or you can reference the entry in the main glossary with \gls{main-svm}.

____________________________

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8. Cross-Referencing Entries

You must use \makeglossaries before defining any cross-referenced entries. If any of the terms that you have cross-referenced don’t appear in the glossary, check that you have put \makeglossaries before all entry definitions.

There are several ways of cross-referencing entries in the glossary:

  1. You can use commands such as \gls in the entries description. For example:
    \newglossaryentry{apple}{name=apple,  
    description={firm, round fruit. See also \gls{pear}}}

    Note that with this method, if you don’t use the cross-referenced term in the main part of the document, you will need two runs of makeglossaries:

    latex filename  
    makeglossaries filename  
    latex filename  
    makeglossaries filename  
    latex filename

  2. As described in §4 Defining Glossary Entries, you can use the see key when you define the entry. For example:
    \newglossaryentry{MaclaurinSeries}{name={Maclaurin  
    series},  
    description={Series expansion},  
    see={TaylorsTheorem}}

    Note that in this case, the entry with the see key will automatically be added to the glossary, but the cross-referenced entry won’t. You therefore need to ensure that you use the cross-referenced term with the commands described in §6 Links to Glossary Entries or §7 Adding an Entry to the Glossary Without Generating Text.

    The “see” tag is produce using \seename, but can be overridden in specific instances using square brackets at the start of the see value. For example:

    \newglossaryentry{MaclaurinSeries}{name={Maclaurin  
    series},  
    description={Series expansion},  
    see=[see also]{TaylorsTheorem}}

  3. After you have defined the entry, use


    \glssee  \glssee[<tag>]{<label>}{<xr label list>}

    where <xr label list> is a comma-separated list of entry labels to be cross-referenced, <label> is the label of the entry doing the cross-referencing and <tag> is the “see” tag. (The default value of <tag> is \seename.) For example:

    \glssee[see also]{series}{FourierSeries,TaylorsTheorem}

    Note that this automatically adds the entry given by <label> to the glossary but doesn’t add the cross-referenced entries (specified by <xr label list>) to the glossary.

In both cases 2 and 3 above, the cross-referenced information appears in the number list, whereas in case 1, the cross-referenced information appears in the description. (See the sample-crossref.tex example file that comes with this package.) This means that in cases 2 and 3, the cross-referencing information won’t appear if you have suppressed the number list. In this case, you will need to activate the number list for the given entries using nonumberlist=false. Alternatively, if you just use the see key instead of \glssee, you can automatically activate the number list using the seeautonumberlist package option.

You must use \makeglossaries before the entry definitions containing the see key and before any instances of \glssee or the entry won’t be automatically added to the glossary.

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8.1 Customising Cross-reference Text

When you use either the see key or the command \glssee, the cross-referencing information will be typeset in the glossary according to:


\glsseeformat  \glsseeformat[<tag>]{<label-list>}{<location>}

The default definition of \glsseeformat is:
\emph{<tag>} \glsseelist{<label-list>}
Note that the location is always ignored.8.1 For example, if you want the tag to appear in bold, you can do:8.2

\renewcommand*{\glsseeformat}[3][\seename]{\textbf{#1}  
 \glsseelist{#2}}

The list of labels is dealt with by \glsseelist, which iterates through the list and typesets each entry in the label. The entries are separated by


\glsseesep  \glsseesep

or (for the last pair)


\glsseelastsep  \glsseelastsep

These default to “,\space” and “\space\andname\space” respectively. The list entry text is displayed using:


\glsseeitemformat  \glsseeitemformat{<label>}

This defaults to \glsentrytext{<label>}.8.3 For example, to make the cross-referenced list use small caps:

\renewcommand{\glsseeitemformat}[1]{%  
  \textsc{\glsentrytext{#1}}}

You can use \glsseeformat and \glsseelist in the main body of the text, but they won’t automatically add the cross-referenced entries to the glossary. If you want them added with that location, you can do:

Some information (see also  
\glsseelist{FourierSeries,TaylorsTheorem}%  
\glsadd{FourierSeries}\glsadd{TaylorsTheorem}).

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9. Using Glossary Terms Without Links

The commands described in this section display entry details without adding any information to the glossary. They don’t use \glstextformat, they don’t have any optional arguments, they don’t affect the first use flag and, apart from \glshyperlink, they don’t produce hyperlinks.

Commands that aren’t expandable will be ignored by PDF bookmarks, so you will need to provide an alternative via hyperref’s \texorpdfstring if you want to use them in sectioning commands. (This isn’t specific to the glossaries package.) See the hyperref documentation for further details. All the commands that convert the first letter to upper case aren’t expandable.


\glsentryname  \glsentryname{<label>}


\Glsentryname  \Glsentryname{<label>}

These commands display the name of the glossary entry given by <label>, as specified by the name key. \Glsentryname makes the first letter upper case. Neither of these commands check for the existence of <label>. The first form \glsentryname is expandable (unless the name contains unexpandable commands).


\glossentryname  \glossentryname{<label>}

This is like \glsnamefont{\glsentryname{<label>}} but also checks for the existence of <label>. This command is not expandable. It’s used in the predefined glossary styles, so if you want to change the way the name is formatted in the glossary, you can redefine \glsnamefont to use the required fonts. For example:

\renewcommand*{\glsnamefont}[1]{\textmd{\sffamily #1}}


\Glossentryname  \Glossentryname{<label>}

This is like \glossentryname but makes the first letter of the name upper case.


\glsentrytext  \glsentrytext{<label>}


\Glsentrytext  \Glsentrytext{<label>}

These commands display the subsequent use text for the glossary entry given by <label>, as specified by the text key. \Glsentrytext makes the first letter upper case. The first form is expandable (unless the text contains unexpandable commands). The second form is not expandable. Neither checks for the existence of <label>.


\glsentryplural  \glsentryplural{<label>}


\Glsentryplural  \Glsentryplural{<label>}

These commands display the subsequent use plural text for the glossary entry given by <label>, as specified by the plural key. \Glsentryplural makes the first letter upper case. The first form is expandable (unless the value of that key contains unexpandable commands). The second form is not expandable. Neither checks for the existence of <label>.


\glsentryfirst  \glsentryfirst{<label>}


\Glsentryfirst  \Glsentryfirst{<label>}

These commands display the first use text for the glossary entry given by <label>, as specified by the first key. \Glsentryfirst makes the first letter upper case. The first form is expandable (unless the value of that key contains unexpandable commands). The second form is not expandable. Neither checks for the existence of <label>.


\glsentryfirstplural  \glsentryfirstplural{<label>}


\Glsentryfirstplural  \Glsentryfirstplural{<label>}

These commands display the plural form of the first use text for the glossary entry given by <label>, as specified by the firstplural key. \Glsentryfirstplural makes the first letter upper case. The first form is expandable (unless the value of that key contains unexpandable commands). The second form is not expandable. Neither checks for the existence of <label>.


\glsentrydesc  \glsentrydesc{<label>}


\Glsentrydesc  \Glsentrydesc{<label>}

These commands display the description for the glossary entry given by <label>. \Glsentrydesc makes the first letter upper case. The first form is expandable (unless the value of that key contains unexpandable commands). The second form is not expandable. Neither checks for the existence of <label>.


\glossentrydesc  \glossentrydesc{<label>}

This is like \glsentrydesc{<label>} but also checks for the existence of <label>. This command is not expandable. It’s used in the predefined glossary styles to display the description.


\Glossentrydesc  \Glossentrydesc{<label>}

This is like \glossentrydesc but converts the first letter to upper case. This command is not expandable.


\glsentrydescplural  \glsentrydescplural{<label>}


\Glsentrydescplural  \Glsentrydescplural{<label>}

These commands display the plural description for the glossary entry given by <label>. \Glsentrydescplural makes the first letter upper case. The first form is expandable (unless the value of that key contains unexpandable commands). The second form is not expandable. Neither checks for the existence of <label>.


\glsentrysymbol  \glsentrysymbol{<label>}


\Glsentrysymbol  \Glsentrysymbol{<label>}

These commands display the symbol for the glossary entry given by <label>. \Glsentrysymbol makes the first letter upper case. The first form is expandable (unless the value of that key contains unexpandable commands). The second form is not expandable. Neither checks for the existence of <label>.


\glossentrysymbol  \glossentrysymbol{<label>}

This is like \glsentrysymbol{<label>} but also checks for the existence of <label>. This command is not expandable. It’s used in the predefined glossary styles to display the symbol.


\Glossentrysymbol  \Glossentrysymbol{<label>}

This is like \glossentrysymbol but converts the first letter to upper case. This command is not expandable.


\glsentrysymbolplural  \glsentrysymbolplural{<label>}


\Glsentrysymbolplural  \Glsentrysymbolplural{<label>}

These commands display the plural symbol for the glossary entry given by <label>. \Glsentrysymbolplural makes the first letter upper case. The first form is expandable (unless the value of that key contains unexpandable commands). The second form is not expandable. Neither checks for the existence of <label>.


\glsentryuseri  \glsentryuseri{<label>}


\Glsentryuseri  \Glsentryuseri{<label>}


\glsentryuserii  \glsentryuserii{<label>}


\Glsentryuserii  \Glsentryuserii{<label>}


\glsentryuseriii  \glsentryuseriii{<label>}


\Glsentryuseriii  \Glsentryuseriii{<label>}


\glsentryuseriv  \glsentryuseriv{<label>}


\Glsentryuseriv  \Glsentryuseriv{<label>}


\glsentryuserv  \glsentryuserv{<label>}


\Glsentryuserv  \Glsentryuserv{<label>}


\glsentryuservi  \glsentryuservi{<label>}


\Glsentryuservi  \Glsentryuservi{<label>}

These commands display the value of the user keys for the glossary entry given by <label>. The lower case forms are expandable (unless the value of the key contains unexpandable commands). The commands beginning with an upper case letter convert the first letter of the required value to upper case and are not expandable. None of these commands check for the existence of <label>.


\glshyperlink  \glshyperlink[<link text>]{<label>}

This command provides a hyperlink to the glossary entry given by <label> but does not add any information to the glossary file. The link text is given by \glsentrytext{<label>} by default9.1, but can be overridden using the optional argument.

If you use \glshyperlink, you need to ensure that the relevant entry has been added to the glossary using any of the commands described in §6 Links to Glossary Entries or §7 Adding an Entry to the Glossary Without Generating Text otherwise you will end up with an undefined link.

The next two commands are only available with the savenumberlist package option:


\glsentrynumberlist  \glsentrynumberlist{<label>}


\glsdisplaynumberlist  \glsdisplaynumberlist{<label>}

Both display the number list for the entry given by <label> and require a run of makeglossaries (or xindy or makeindex) followed by one or two runs of LATEX. The first command, \glsentrynumberlist, simply displays the number list as is. The second command, \glsdisplaynumberlist, formats the list using:


\glsnumlistsep  \glsnumlistsep

as the separator between all but the last two elements and


\glsnumlistlastsep  \glsnumlistlastsep

between the final two elements. The defaults are ,␣ and ␣\&␣, respectively.

\glsdisplaynumberlist is fairly experimental. It only works when the default counter format is used (that is, when the format key is set to glsnumberformat). This command also doesn’t work with hyperref. If you try using it with that package, \glsentrynumberlist will be used instead.

For further information see “Displaying entry details without adding information to the glossary” in the documented code (glossaries-code.pdf).

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10. Displaying a glossary

The command


\printglossaries  \printglossaries

will display all the glossaries in the order in which they were defined. Note that no glossaries will appear until you have either used the Perl script makeglossaries or have directly used makeindex or xindy (as described in §1.3 Generating the Associated Glossary Files). If the glossary still does not appear after you re-LATEX your document, check the makeindex/xindy log files to see if there is a problem. Remember that you also need to use the command \makeglossaries in the preamble to enable the glossaries.

An individual glossary can be displayed using:


\printglossary  \printglossary[<options>]

where <options> is a <key>=<value> list of options. The following keys are available:

type
The value of this key specifies which glossary to print. If omitted, the default glossary is assumed. For example, to print the list of acronyms:
\printglossary[type=\acronymtype]

title
This is the glossary’s title (overriding the title specified when the glossary was defined).
toctitle
This is the title to use for the table of contents (if the toc package option has been used). It may also be used for the page header, depending on the page style. If omitted, the value of title is used.
style
This specifies which glossary style to use for this glossary, overriding the effect of the style package option or \glossarystyle.
numberedsection
This specifies whether to use a numbered section for this glossary, overriding the effect of the numberedsection package option. This key has the same syntax as the numberedsection package option, described in §2.2 Sectioning, Headings and TOC Options.
nonumberlist
This is a boolean key. If true (nonumberlist=true) the numberlist is suppressed for this glossary. If false (nonumberlist=false) the numberlist is displayed for this glossary. If no value is supplied, true is assumed.

By default, the glossary is started either by \chapter* or by \section*, depending on whether or not \chapter is defined. This can be overridden by the section package option or the \setglossarysection command. Numbered sectional units can be obtained using the numberedsection package option. Each glossary sets the page header via the command


\glsglossarymark  \glsglossarymark{<title>}

If this mechanism is unsuitable for your chosen class file or page style package, you will need to redefine \glsglossarymark. Further information about these options and commands is given in §2.2 Sectioning, Headings and TOC Options.

Information can be added to the start of the glossary (after the title and before the main body of the glossary) by redefining


\glossarypreamble  \glossarypreamble

For example:

\renewcommand{\glossarypreamble}{Numbers in italic  
indicate primary definitions.}

This needs to be done before the glossary is displayed using \printglossaries or \printglossary.

If you want a different preamble per glossary you can use


\setglossarypreamble  \setglossarypreamble[<type>]{<preamble text>}

If <type> is omitted, \glsdefaulttype is used.

For example:

\setglossarypreamble{Numbers in italic  
indicate primary definitions.}

This will print the given preamble text for the main glossary, but not have any preamble text for any other glossaries.

There is an analogous command to \glossarypreamble called


\glossarypostamble  \glossarypostamble

which is placed at the end of each glossary.

Example 12 (Switch to Two Column Mode for Glossary)

Suppose you are using the superheaderborder style10.1, and you want the glossary to be in two columns, but after the glossary you want to switch back to one column mode, you could do:

\renewcommand*{\glossarysection}[2][]{%  
  \twocolumn[{\chapter*{#2}}]%  
  \setlength\glsdescwidth{0.6\linewidth}%  
  \glsglossarymark{\glossarytoctitle}%  
}  
\renewcommand*{\glossarypostamble}{\onecolumn}

____________________________

Within each glossary, each entry name is formatted according to


\glsnamefont  \glsnamefont{<name>}

which takes one argument: the entry name. This command is always used regardless of the glossary style. By default, \glsnamefont simply displays its argument in whatever the surrounding font happens to be. This means that in the list-like glossary styles (defined in the glossary-list style file) the name will appear in bold, since the name is placed in the optional argument of \item, whereas in the tabular styles (defined in the glossary-long and glossary-super style files) the name will appear in the normal font. The hierarchical glossary styles (defined in the glossary-tree style file) also set the name in bold.

Example 13 (Changing the Font Used to Display Entry Names in the Glossary)

Suppose you want all the entry names to appear in medium weight small caps in your glossaries, then you can do:

\renewcommand{\glsnamefont}[1]{\textsc{\mdseries #1}}

____________________________

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11. Xindy

If you want to use xindy to sort the glossary, you must use the package option xindy:

\usepackage[xindy]{glossaries}

This ensures that the glossary information is written in xindy syntax.

§1.3 Generating the Associated Glossary Files covers how to use the external indexing application. This section covers the commands provided by the glossaries package that allow you to adjust the xindy style file (.xdy) and parameters.

To assist writing information to the xindy style file, the glossaries package provides the following commands:


\glsopenbrace  \glsopenbrace


\glsclosebrace  \glsclosebrace

which produce an open and closing brace. (This is needed because \{ and \} don’t expand to a simple brace character when written to a file.)

In addition, if you are using a package that makes the double quote character active (e.g. ngerman) you can use:


\glsquote  \glsquote{<text>}

which will produce "<text>". Alternatively, you can use \string" to write the double-quote character. This document assumes that the double quote character has not been made active, so the examples just use " for clarity.

If you want greater control over the xindy style file than is available through the LATEX commands provided by the glossaries package, you will need to edit the xindy style file. In which case, you must use \noist to prevent the style file from being overwritten by the glossaries package. For additional information about xindy, read the xindy documentation. I’m sorry I can’t provide any assistance with writing xindy style files. If you need help, I recommend you ask on the xindy mailing list (http://xindy.sourceforge.net/mailing-_list.html).

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11.1 Language and Encodings

When you use xindy, you need to specify the language and encoding used (unless you have written your own custom xindy style file that defines the relevant alphabet and sort rules). If you use makeglossaries, this information is obtained from the document’s auxiliary (.aux) file. The makeglossaries script attempts to find the root language given your document settings, but in the event that it gets it wrong or if xindy doesn’t support that language, then you can specify the required language using:


\GlsSetXdyLanguage  \GlsSetXdyLanguage[<glossary type>]{<language>}

where <language> is the name of the language. The optional argument can be used if you have multiple glossaries in different languages. If <glossary type> is omitted, it will be applied to all glossaries, otherwise the language setting will only be applied to the glossary given by <glossary type>.

If the inputenc package is used, the encoding will be obtained from the value of \inputencodingname. Alternatively, you can specify the encoding using:


\GlsSetXdyCodePage  \GlsSetXdyCodePage{<code>}

where <code> is the name of the encoding. For example:

\GlsSetXdyCodePage{utf8}

Note that you can also specify the language and encoding using the package option xindy={language=<lang>,codepage=<code>}. For example:

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

If you write your own custom xindy style file that includes the language settings, you need to set the language to nothing:

\GlsSetXdyLanguage{}

(and remember to use \noist to prevent the style file from being overwritten).

The commands \GlsSetXdyLanguage and \GlsSetXdyCodePage have no effect if you don’t use makeglossaries. If you call xindy without makeglossaries you need to remember to set the language and encoding using the -L and -C switches.

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11.2 Locations and Number lists

If you use xindy, the glossaries package needs to know which counters you will be using in the number list in order to correctly format the xindy style file. Counters specified using the counter package option or the <counter> option of \newglossary are automatically taken care of, but if you plan to use a different counter in the counter key for commands like \glslink, then you need to identify these counters before \makeglossaries using:


\GlsAddXdyCounters  \GlsAddXdyCounters{<counter list>}

where <counter list> is a comma-separated list of counter names.

The most likely attributes used in the format key (textrm, hyperrm etc) are automatically added to the xindy style file, but if you want to use another attribute, you need to add it using:


\GlsAddXdyAttribute  \GlsAddXdyAttribute{<name>}

where <name> is the name of the attribute, as used in the format key.

Example 14 (Custom Font for Displaying a Location)

Suppose I want a bold, italic, hyperlinked location. I first need to define a command that will do this:

\newcommand*{\hyperbfit}[1]{\textit{\hyperbf{#1}}}

but with xindy, I also need to add this as an allowed attribute:

\GlsAddXdyAttribute{hyperbfit}

Now I can use it in the optional argument of commands like \gls:

Here is a \gls[format=hyperbfit]{sample} entry.

(where sample is the label of the required entry).

____________________________

Note that \GlsAddXdyAttribute has no effect if \noist is used or if \makeglossaries is omitted. \GlsAddXdyAttribute must be used before \makeglossaries. Additionally, \GlsAddXdyCounters must come before \GlsAddXdyAttribute.

If the location numbers don’t get expanded to a simple Arabic or Roman number or a letter from a, …, z or A, …, Z, then you need to add a location style in the appropriate format using


\GlsAddXdyLocation  \GlsAddXdyLocation[<prefix-location>]{<name>}{<definition>}

where <name> is the name of the format and <definition> is the xindy definition. The optional argument <prefix-location> is needed if \theH<counter> either isn’t defined or is different from \the<counter>.

Note that \GlsAddXdyLocation has no effect if \noist is used or if \makeglossaries is omitted. \GlsAddXdyLocation must be used before \makeglossaries.

Example 15 (Custom Numbering System for Locations)

Suppose I decide to use a somewhat eccentric numbering system for sections where I redefine \thesection as follows:

\renewcommand*{\thesection}{[\thechapter]\arabic{section}}

If I haven’t done counter=section in the package option, I need to specify that the counter will be used as a location number:

\GlsAddXdyCounters{section}

Next I need to add the location style (\thechapter is assumed to be the standard \arabic{chapter}):

\GlsAddXdyLocation{section}{:sep "[" "arabic-numbers" :sep "]"  
  "arabic-numbers"  
}

Note that if I have further decided to use the hyperref package and want to redefine \theHsection as:

\renewcommand*{\theHsection}{\thepart.\thesection}  
\renewcommand*{\thepart}{\Roman{part}}

then I need to modify the \GlsAddXdyLocation code above to:

\GlsAddXdyLocation["roman-numbers-uppercase"]{section}{:sep "["  
  "arabic-numbers" :sep "]" "arabic-numbers"  
}

Since \Roman will result in an empty string if the counter is zero, it’s a good idea to add an extra location to catch this:

\GlsAddXdyLocation{zero.section}{:sep "["  
  "arabic-numbers" :sep "]" "arabic-numbers"  
}

This example is illustrated in the sample file samplexdy2.tex.

____________________________

Example 16 (Locations as Words not Digits)

Suppose I want the page numbers written as words rather than digits and I use the fmtcount package to do this. I can redefine \thepage as follows:

\renewcommand*{\thepage}{\Numberstring{page}}

This gets expanded to \protect \Numberstringnum {<n>} where <n> is the Arabic page number. This means that I need to define a new location that has that form:

\GlsAddXdyLocation{Numberstring}{:sep "\string\protect\space  
  \string\Numberstringnum\space\glsopenbrace"  
  "arabic-numbers" :sep "\glsclosebrace"}

Note that it’s necessary to use \space to indicate that spaces also appear in the format, since, unlike TEX, xindy doesn’t ignore spaces after control sequences.

Note that \GlsAddXdyLocation{<name>}{<definition>} will define commands in the form:


\glsX<counter>X<name>{<Hprefix>}{<location>}

for each counter that has been identified either by the counter package option, the <counter> option for \newglossary or in the argument of \GlsAddXdyCounters.

The first argument <Hprefix> is only relevant when used with the hyperref package and indicates that \the<Hcounter> is given by \Hprefix.\the<counter>. The sample file samplexdy.tex, which comes with the glossaries package, uses the default page counter for locations, and it uses the default \glsnumberformat and a custom \hyperbfit format. A new xindy location called Numberstring, as illustrated above, is defined to make the page numbers appear as “One”, “Two”, etc. In order for the location numbers to hyperlink to the relevant pages, I need to redefine the necessary \glsX<counter>X<format> commands:

\renewcommand{\glsXpageXglsnumberformat}[2]{%  
 \linkpagenumber#2%  
}  
\renewcommand{\glsXpageXhyperbfit}[2]{%  
 \textbf{\em\linkpagenumber#2}%  
}  
\newcommand{\linkpagenumber}[3]{\hyperlink{page.#3}{#1#2{#3}}}

____________________________

In the number list, the locations are sorted according to type. The default ordering is: roman-page-numbers (e.g. i), arabic-page-numbers (e.g. 1), arabic-section-numbers (e.g. 1.1 if the compositor is a full stop or 1-1 if the compositor is a hyphen11.1), alpha-page-numbers (e.g. a), Roman-page-numbers (e.g. I), Alpha-page-numbers (e.g. A), Appendix-page-numbers (e.g. A.1 if the Alpha compositor is a full stop or A-1 if the Alpha compositor is a hyphen11.2), user defined location names (as specified by \GlsAddXdyLocation in the order in which they were defined), see (cross-referenced entries). This ordering can be changed using:

\GlsSetXdyLocationClassOrder 


\GlsSetXdyLocationClassOrder{<location names>}

where each location name is delimited by double quote marks and separated by white space. For example:

\GlsSetXdyLocationClassOrder{  
  "arabic-page-numbers"  
  "arabic-section-numbers"  
  "roman-page-numbers"  
  "Roman-page-numbers"  
  "alpha-page-numbers"  
  "Alpha-page-numbers"  
  "Appendix-page-numbers"  
  "see"  
}

Note that \GlsSetXdyLocationClassOrder has no effect if \noist is used or if \makeglossaries is omitted. \GlsSetXdyLocationClassOrder must be used before \makeglossaries.

If a number list consists of a sequence of consecutive numbers, the range will be concatenated. The number of consecutive locations that causes a range formation defaults to 2, but can be changed using:

\GlsSetXdyMinRangeLength 


\GlsSetXdyMinRangeLength{<n>}

For example:

\GlsSetXdyMinRangeLength{3}

The argument may also be the keyword none, to indicate that there should be no range formations. See the xindy manual for further details on range formations.

Note that \GlsSetXdyMinRangeLength has no effect if \noist is used or if \makeglossaries is omitted. \GlsSetXdyMinRangeLength must be used before \makeglossaries.

See §5 Number lists for further details.

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11.3 Glossary Groups

The glossary is divided into groups according to the first letter of the sort key. The glossaries package also adds a number group by default, unless you suppress it in the xindy package option. For example:

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

Any entry that doesn’t go in one of the letter groups or the number group is placed in the default group.

If you have a number group, the default behaviour is to locate it before the “A” letter group. If you are not using a Roman alphabet, you can change this using:

\GlsSetXdyFirstLetterAfterDigits 


\GlsSetXdyFirstLetterAfterDigits{<letter>}

Note that \GlsSetXdyFirstLetterAfterDigits has no effect if \noist is used or if \makeglossaries is omitted. \GlsSetXdyFirstLetterAfterDigits must be used before \makeglossaries.

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12. Defining New Glossaries

A new glossary can be defined using:


\newglossary  \newglossary[<log-ext>]{<name>}{<in-ext>}{<out-ext>}{<title>} [<counter>]

where <name> is the label to assign to this glossary. The arguments <in-ext> and <out-ext> specify the extensions to give to the input and output files for that glossary, <title> is the default title for this new glossary and the final optional argument <counter> specifies which counter to use for the associated number lists (see also §5 Number lists). The first optional argument specifies the extension for the makeindex or xindy transcript file (this information is only used by makeglossaries which picks up the information from the auxiliary file).

The glossary label <name> must not contain any active characters. It’s generally best to stick with just characters that have category code 11 (typically a, …, z and A, …, Z).

You can also use:


\altnewglossary  \altnewglossary{<name>}{<tag>}{<title>}[<counter>]

This is equivalent to

\newglossary[<tag>-glg]{<name>}{<tag>-gls}{<tag>-glo}{<title>}[<counter>]

Note that the main (default) glossary is automatically created as:

\newglossary{main}{gls}{glo}{\glossaryname}

so it can be identified by the label main (unless the nomain package option is used). Using the acronym package option is equivalent to:

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

so it can be identified by the label acronym. If you are not sure whether the acronym option has been used, you can identify the list of acronyms by the command \acronymtype \acronymtype which is set to acronym, if the acronym option has been used, otherwise it is set to main. Note that if you are using the main glossary as your list of acronyms, you need to declare it as a list of acronyms using the package option acronymlists.

The symbols package option creates a new glossary with the label symbols using:

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

and the numbers package option creates a new glossary with the label numbers using:

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

All glossaries must be defined before \makeglossaries to ensure that the relevant output files are opened.

See §1.2.1 Changing the Fixed Names if you want to redefine \glossaryname, especially if you are using babel or translator. (Similarly for \glssymbolsgroupname and \glsnumbersgroupname.)

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13. Acronyms

You may have noticed in §4 Defining Glossary Entries that when you specify a new entry, you can specify alternate text to use when the term is first used in the document. This provides a useful means to define acronyms. For convenience, the glossaries package defines the command:


\newacronym  \newacronym[<key-val list>]{<label>}{<abbrv>}{<long>}

This uses \newglossaryentry to create an entry with the given label in the glossary given by \acronymtype. You can specify a different glossary using the type key within the optional argument. The \newacronym command also uses the long, longplural, short and shortplural keys in \newglossaryentry to store the long and abbreviated forms and their plurals.

If you haven’t identified the specified glossary type as a list of acronyms (via the package option acronymlists or the command \DeclareAcronymList, see §2.5 Acronym Options) \newacronym will add it to the list and reset the display style for that glossary via \defglsentryfmt. If you have a mixture of acronyms and regular entries within the same glossary, care is needed if you want to change the display style: you must first identify that glossary as a list of acronyms and then use \defglsentryfmt (not redefine \glsentryfmt) before defining your entries.

The optional argument {<key-val list>} allows you to specify keys such as description (when used with one of the styles that require a description, described in §13.1 Changing the Acronym Style) or you can override plural forms of <abbrv> or <long> using the shortplural or longplural keys. For example:

\newacronym[longplural={diagonal matrices}]%  
  {dm}{DM}{diagonal matrix}

If the first use uses the plural form, \glspl{dm} will display: diagonal matrices (DMs). If you want to use the longplural or shortplural keys, I recommend you use \setacronymstyle to set the display style rather than using one of the pre-version 4.02 acronym styles.

Since \newacronym uses \newglossaryentry, you can use commands like \gls and \glsreset as with any other glossary entry.

Since \newacronym sets type=\acronymtype, if you want to load a file containing acronym definitions using \loadglsentries[<type>]{<filename>}, the optional argument <type> will not have an effect unless you explicitly set the type as type=\glsdefaulttype in the optional argument to \newacronym. See §4.6 Loading Entries From a File.

Example 17 (Defining an Acronym)

The following defines the acronym IDN:

\newacronym{idn}{IDN}{identification number}

\gls{idn} will produce “identification number (IDN)” on first use and “IDN” on subsequent uses. If you want to use one of the smallcaps acronym styles, described in §13.1 Changing the Acronym Style, you need to use lower case characters for the shortened form:

\newacronym{idn}{idn}{identification number}

Now \gls{idn} will produce “identification number (idn)” on first use and “idn” on subsequent uses.

____________________________

There are commands similar to \glstext (described in §6 Links to Glossary Entries) that allow you to access just the short form, just the long form or the full form, without affecting the first use flag. (Note that the full form isn’t necessarily the same as the text produced on first use.)

Although these commands are similar to commands such as \glstext, they behave more like \glsdisp (except for the first use behaviour) in that the display is governed by \defentryfmt with \glscustomtext set as appropriate.


\acrshort  \acrshort[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

This displays the short form (within the argument of \acronymfont) for the entry given by <label>. The optional arguments are the same as those for \glstext. There is also a starred version to suppress the hyperlink. There are also analogous upper case variants:


\Acrshort  \Acrshort[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]


\ACRshort  \ACRshort[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

There are also plural versions:


\acrshortpl  \acrshortpl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]


\Acrshortpl  \Acrshortpl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]


\ACRshortpl  \ACRshortpl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

Similarly for the long form:


\acrlong  \acrlong[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

This displays the long form for the entry given by <label>. The optional arguments are the same as before. There is also a starred version to suppress the hyperlink. There are also analogous upper case variants:


\Acrlong  \Acrlong[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]


\ACRlong  \ACRlong[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

Again there are also plural versions:


\acrlongpl  \acrlongpl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]


\Acrlongpl  \Acrlongpl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]


\ACRlongpl  \ACRlongpl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

And for the full form:


\acrfull  \acrfull[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

This defaults to <long> (\acronymfont{<short>}). The format (including hyperlinks) can be modified by redefining:


\acrfullfmt  \acrfullfmt{<options>}{<label>}{<insert>}

There are also analogous upper case variants:


\Acrfull  \Acrfull[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]


\ACRfull  \ACRfull[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

The formats (including hyperlinks) can be modified by redefining:


\Acrfullfmt  \Acrfullfmt{<options>}{<label>}{<insert>}


\ACRfullfmt  \ACRfullfmt{<options>}{<label>}{<insert>}

As before there are also plural versions:


\acrfullpl  \acrfullpl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]


\Acrfullpl  \Acrfullpl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]


\ACRfullpl  \ACRfullpl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

The formats (including hyperlinks) can be modified by redefining:


\acrfullplfmt  \acrfullplfmt{<options>}{<label>}{<insert>}


\Acrfullplfmt  \Acrfullplfmt{<options>}{<label>}{<insert>}


\ACRfullplfmt  \ACRfullplfmt{<options>}{<label>}{<insert>}

If you find the above commands too cumbersome to write, you can use the shortcuts package option to activate the shorter command names listed in table 13.1.


Table 13.1: Synonyms provided by the package option shortcuts
Shortcut Command Equivalent Command
\acs \acrshort
\Acs \Acrshort
\acsp \acrshortpl
\Acsp \Acrshortpl
\acl \acrlong
\Acl \Acrlong
\aclp \acrlongpl
\Aclp \Acrlongpl
\acf \acrfull
\Acf \Acrfull
\acfp \acrfullpl
\Acfp \Acrfullpl
\ac \gls
\Ac \Gls
\acp \glspl
\Acp \Glspl

It is also possible to access the long and short forms without adding information to the glossary using commands analogous to \glsentrytext (described in §9 Using Glossary Terms Without Links).

The commands that convert the first letter to upper case come with the same caveats as those for analogous commands like \Glsentrytext (non-expandable, can’t be used in PDF bookmarks, care needs to be taken if the first letter is an accented character etc). See §9 Using Glossary Terms Without Links.

The long form can be accessed using:


\glsentrylong  \glsentrylong{<label>}

or, with the first letter converted to upper case:


\Glsentrylong  \Glsentrylong{<label>}

Plural forms:


\glsentrylongpl  \glsentrylongpl{<label>}


\Glsentrylongpl  \Glsentrylongpl{<label>}

Similarly, to access the short form:


\glsentryshort  \glsentryshort{<label>}

or, with the first letter converted to upper case:


\Glsentryshort  \Glsentryshort{<label>}

Plural forms:


\glsentryshortpl  \glsentryshortpl{<label>}


\Glsentryshortpl  \Glsentryshortpl{<label>}

And the full form, <long> (<short>), can be obtained using:


\glsentryfull  \glsentryfull{<label>}


\Glsentryfull  \Glsentryfull{<label>}


\glsentryfullpl  \glsentryfullpl{<label>}


\Glsentryfullpl  \Glsentryfullpl{<label>}

(These may be redefined by the acronym style.)

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13.1 Changing the Acronym Style

It may be that the default style doesn’t suit your requirements in which case you can switch to another styles via


\setacronymstyle  \setacronymstyle{<style name>}

where <style name> is the name of the required style.

You must use \setacronymstyle before you define the acronyms with \newacronym. If you have multiple glossaries representing lists of acronyms, you must use \setacronymstyle after using \DeclareAcronymList.

Note that unlike the default behaviour of \newacronym, the styles used via \setacronymstyle don’t use the first or text keys, but instead they use \defglsentryfmt to set a custom format that uses the long and short keys (or their plural equivalents). This means that these styles cope better with plurals that aren’t formed by simply appending the singular form with the letter “s”. In fact, most of the predefined styles use \glsgenacfmt and modify the definitions of commands like \genacrfullformat.

Note that when you use \setacronymstyle the name key is set to


\acronymentry  \acronymentry{<label>}

and the sort key is set to


\acronymsort  \acronymsort{<short>}{<long>}

These commands are redefined by the acronym styles. However, you can redefine them again after the style has been set but before you use \newacronym. Protected expansion is performed on \acronymsort when the entry is defined.

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13.1.1 Predefined Acronym Styles

The glossaries package provides a number of predefined styles. These styles apply


\firstacronymfont  \firstacronymfont{<text>}

to the short form on first use and


\acronymfont  \acronymfont{<text>}

on subsequent use. The styles modify the definition of \acronymfont as required, but \firstacronymfont is only set once by the package when it’s loaded. By default \firstacronymfont{<text>} is the same as \acronymfont{<text>}. If you want the short form displayed differently on first use, you can redefine \firstacronymfont independently of the acronym style.

The predefined styles that contain sc in their name (for example long-sc-short) redefine \acronymfont to use \textsc (so the short form needs to be specified in lower case).

Some fonts don’t support bold smallcaps, so you may need to redefine \glsnamefont (see §10 Displaying a glossary) to switch to medium weight if you are using a glossary style that displays entry names in bold and you have chosen an acronym style that uses \textsc.

The predefined styles that contain sm in their name (for example long-sm-short) redefine \acronymfont to use \textsmaller.

Note that the glossaries package doesn’t define or load any package that defines \textsmaller. If you use one of the acronym styles that set \acronymfont to \textsmaller you must explicitly load the relsize package or otherwise define \textsmaller.

The remaining predefined styles redefine \acronymfont{<text>} to simply do its argument <text>.

In most cases, the predefined styles adjust \acrfull and \glsentryfull (and their plural and upper case variants) to reflect the style. The only exceptions to this are the dua and footnote styles (and their variants).

The following styles are supplied by the glossaries package:

Example 18 (Adapting a Predefined Acronym Style)

Suppose I want to use the footnote-sc-desc style, but I want the name key set to the short form followed by the long form in parentheses and the sort key set to the short form. Then I need to specify the footnote-sc-desc style:

\setacronymstyle{footnote-sc-desc}

and then redefine \acronymsort and \acronymentry:

\renewcommand*{\acronymsort}[2]{#1}% sort by short form  
\renewcommand*{\acronymentry}[1]{%  
  \acronymfont{\glsentryshort{#1}}\space (\glsentrylong{#1})}%

(I’ve used \space for extra clarity, but you can just use an actual space instead.)

Since the default Computer Modern fonts don’t support bold smallcaps, I’m also going to redefine \acronymfont so that it always switches to medium weight to ensure the smallcaps setting is used:

\renewcommand*{\acronymfont}[1]{\textmd{\scshape #1}}

This isn’t necessary if you use a font that supports bold smallcaps.

The sample file sampleFnAcrDesc.tex illustrates this example.

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13.1.2 Defining A Custom Acronym Style

You may find that the predefined acronyms styles that come with the glossaries package don’t suit your requirements. In this case you can define your own style using:


\newacronymstyle  \newacronymstyle{<style name>}{<display>}{<definitions>}

where <style name> is the name of the new style (avoid active characters). The second argument, <display>, is equivalent to the mandatory argument of \defglsentryfmt. You can simply use \glsgenacfmt or you can customize the display using commands like \ifglsused, \glsifplural and \glscapscase. (See §6.1 Changing the format of the link text for further details.) If the style is likely to be used with a mixed glossary (that is entries in that glossary are defined both with \newacronym and \newglossaryentry) then you can test if the entry is an acronym and use \glsgenacfmt if it is or \glsgenentryfmt if it isn’t. For example, the long-short style sets <display> as

\ifglshaslong{\glslabel}{\glsgenacfmt}{\glsgenentryfmt}%

(You can use \ifglshasshort instead of \ifglshaslong to test if the entry is an acronym if you prefer.)

The third argument, <definitions>, can be used to redefine the commands that affect the display style, such as \acronymfont or, if <display> uses \glsgenacfmt, \genacrfullformat and its variants.

Note that \setacronymstyle redefines \glsentryfull and \acrfullfmt to use \genacrfullformat (and similarly for the plural and upper case variants). If this isn’t appropriate for the style (as in the case of styles like footnote and dua) \newacronymstyle should redefine these commands within <definitions>.

Within \newacronymstyle’s <definitions> argument you can also redefine


\GenericAcronymFields  \GenericAcronymFields

This is a list of additional fields to be set in \newacronym. You can use the following token registers to access the entry label, long form and short form: \glslabeltok \glslabeltok, \glslongtok \glslongtok and \glsshorttok \glsshorttok. As with all TEX registers, you can access their values by preceding the register with \the. For example, the long-short style does:

\renewcommand*{\GenericAcronymFields}{%  
   description={\the\glslongtok}}%

which sets the description field to the long form of the acronym whereas the long-short-desc style does:

\renewcommand*{\GenericAcronymFields}{}%

since the description needs to be specified by the user.

It may be that you want to define a new acronym style that’s based on an existing style. Within <display> you can use

\GlsUseAcrEntryDispStyle 


\GlsUseAcrEntryDispStyle{<style name>}

to use the <display> definition from the style given by <style name>. Within <definitions> you can use


\GlsUseAcrStyleDefs  \GlsUseAcrStyleDefs{<style name>}

to use the <definitions> from the style given by <style name>. For example, the long-sc-short acronym style is based on the long-short style with minor modifications (remember to use ## instead of # within <definitions>):

\newacronymstyle{long-sc-short}%  
{% use the same display as "long-short"  
  \GlsUseAcrEntryDispStyle{long-short}%  
}%  
{% use the same definitions as "long-short"  
  \GlsUseAcrStyleDefs{long-short}%  
  % Minor modifications:  
  \renewcommand{\acronymfont}[1]{\textsc{##1}}%  
  \renewcommand*{\acrpluralsuffix}{\glstextup{\glspluralsuffix}}%  
}

(\glstextup \glstextup is used to cancel the effect of \textsc. This defaults to \textulc, if defined, otherwise \textup. For example, the plural of svm should be rendered as svms rather than svms.)

Example 19 (Defining a Custom Acronym Style)

Suppose I want my acronym on first use to have the short form in the text and the long form with the description in a footnote. Suppose also that I want the short form to be put in small caps in the main body of the document, but I want it in normal capitals in the list of acronyms. In my list of acronyms, I want the long form as the name with the short form in brackets followed by the description. That is, in the text I want \gls on first use to display:
\textsc{<abbrv>}\footnote{<long>: <description>}
on subsequent use:
\textsc{<abbrv>}
and in the list of acronyms, each entry will be displayed in the form:
<long> (<short>) <description>

Let’s suppose it’s possible that I may have a mixed glossary. I can check this in the second argument of \newacronymstyle using:

\ifglshaslong{\glslabel}{\glsgenacfmt}{\glsgenentryfmt}%

This will use \glsgenentryfmt if the entry isn’t an acronym, otherwise it will use \glsgenacfmt. The third argument (<definitions>) of \newacronymstyle needs to redefine \genacrfullformat etc so that the first use displays the short form in the text with the long form in a footnote followed by the description. This is done as follows (remember to use ## instead of #):

 % No case change, singular first use:  
  \renewcommand*{\genacrfullformat}[2]{%  
   \firstacronymfont{\glsentryshort{##1}}##2%  
   \footnote{\glsentrylong{##1}: \glsentrydesc{##1}}%  
  }%  
 % First letter upper case, singular first use:  
  \renewcommand*{\Genacrfullformat}[2]{%  
   \firstacronymfont{\Glsentryshort{##1}}##2%  
   \footnote{\glsentrylong{##1}: \glsentrydesc{##1}}%  
  }%  
 % No case change, plural first use:  
  \renewcommand*{\genplacrfullformat}[2]{%  
   \firstacronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##1}}##2%  
   \footnote{\glsentrylongpl{##1}: \glsentrydesc{##1}}%  
  }%  
 % First letter upper case, plural first use:  
  \renewcommand*{\Genplacrfullformat}[2]{%  
   \firstacronymfont{\Glsentryshortpl{##1}}##2%  
   \footnote{\glsentrylongpl{##1}: \glsentrydesc{##1}}%  
  }%

If you think it inappropriate for the short form to be capitalised at the start of a sentence you can change the above to:

 % No case change, singular first use:  
  \renewcommand*{\genacrfullformat}[2]{%  
   \firstacronymfont{\glsentryshort{##1}}##2%  
   \footnote{\glsentrylong{##1}: \glsentrydesc{##1}}%  
  }%  
 % No case change, plural first use:  
  \renewcommand*{\genplacrfullformat}[2]{%  
   \firstacronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##1}}##2%  
   \footnote{\glsentrylongpl{##1}: \glsentrydesc{##1}}%  
  }%  
 \let\Genacrfullformat\genacrfullformat  
 \let\Genplacrfullformat\genplacrfullformat

Another variation is to use \Glsentrylong and \Glsentrylongpl in the footnote instead of \glsentrylong and \glsentrylongpl.

Now let’s suppose that commands such as \glsentryfull and \acrfull shouldn’t use a footnote, but instead use the format: <long> (<short>). This means that the style needs to redefine \glsentryfull, \acrfullfmt and their plural and upper case variants.

First, the non-linking commands:

  \renewcommand*{\glsentryfull}[1]{%  
    \glsentrylong{##1}\space  
      (\acronymfont{\glsentryshort{##1}})%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\Glsentryfull}[1]{%  
    \Glsentrylong{##1}\space  
      (\acronymfont{\glsentryshort{##1}})%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\glsentryfullpl}[1]{%  
    \glsentrylongpl{##1}\space  
      (\acronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##1}})%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\Glsentryfullpl}[1]{%  
    \Glsentrylongpl{##1}\space  
      (\acronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##1}})%  
  }%

Now for the linking commands:

  \renewcommand*{\acrfullfmt}[3]{%  
    \glslink[##1]{##2}{%  
     \glsentrylong{##2}##3\space  
      (\acronymfont{\glsentryshort{##2}})%  
    }%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\Acrfullfmt}[3]{%  
    \glslink[##1]{##2}{%  
     \Glsentrylong{##2}##3\space  
      (\acronymfont{\glsentryshort{##2}})%  
    }%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\ACRfullfmt}[3]{%  
    \glslink[##1]{##2}{%  
     \MakeTextUppercase{%  
       \glsentrylong{##2}##3\space  
         (\acronymfont{\glsentryshort{##2}})%  
     }%  
    }%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\acrfullplfmt}[3]{%  
    \glslink[##1]{##2}{%  
     \glsentrylongpl{##2}##3\space  
       (\acronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##2}})%  
    }%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\Acrfullplfmt}[3]{%  
    \glslink[##1]{##2}{%  
     \Glsentrylongpl{##2}##3\space  
       (\acronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##2}})%  
    }%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\ACRfullplfmt}[3]{%  
    \glslink[##1]{##2}{%  
     \MakeTextUppercase{%  
       \glsentrylongpl{##2}##3\space  
         (\acronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##2}})%  
     }%  
    }%  
  }%

(This may cause problems with long hyperlinks, in which case adjust the definitions so that, for example, only the short form is inside the argument of \glslink.)

The style also needs to redefine \acronymsort so that the acronyms are sorted according to the long form:

  \renewcommand*{\acronymsort}[2]{##2}%

If you prefer them to be sorted according to the short form you can change the above to:

  \renewcommand*{\acronymsort}[2]{##1}%

The acronym font needs to be set to \textsc and the plural suffix adjusted so that the “s” suffix in the plural short form doesn’t get converted to smallcaps:

  \renewcommand*{\acronymfont}[1]{\textsc{##1}}%  
  \renewcommand*{\acrpluralsuffix}{\glstextup{\glspluralsuffix}}%

There are a number of ways of dealing with the format in the list of acronyms. The simplest way is to redefine \acronymentry to the long form followed by the upper case short form in parentheses:

 \renewcommand*{\acronymentry}[1]{%  
   \Glsentrylong{##1}\space  
     (\MakeTextUppercase{\glsentryshort{##1}})}%

(I’ve used \Glsentrylong instead of \glsentrylong to capitalise the name in the glossary.)

An alternative approach is to set \acronymentry to just the long form and redefine \GenericAcronymFields to set the symbol key to the short form and use a glossary style that displays the symbol in parentheses after the name (such as the tree style) like this:

 \renewcommand*{\acronymentry}[1]{\Glsentrylong{##1}}%  
 \renewcommand*{\GenericAcronymFields}{%  
    symbol={\protect\MakeTextUppercase{\the\glsshorttok}}}%

I’m going to use the first approach and set \GenericAcronymFields to do nothing:

 \renewcommand*{\GenericAcronymFields}{}%

Finally, this style needs to switch off hyperlinks on first use to avoid nested links:

 \glshyperfirstfalse

Putting this all together:

\newacronymstyle{custom-fn}% new style name  
{%  
  \ifglshaslong{\glslabel}{\glsgenacfmt}{\glsgenentryfmt}%  
}%  
{%  
 \renewcommand*{\GenericAcronymFields}{}%  
 \glshyperfirstfalse  
  \renewcommand*{\genacrfullformat}[2]{%  
   \firstacronymfont{\glsentryshort{##1}}##2%  
   \footnote{\glsentrylong{##1}: \glsentrydesc{##1}}%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\Genacrfullformat}[2]{%  
   \firstacronymfont{\Glsentryshort{##1}}##2%  
   \footnote{\glsentrylong{##1}: \glsentrydesc{##1}}%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\genplacrfullformat}[2]{%  
   \firstacronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##1}}##2%  
   \footnote{\glsentrylongpl{##1}: \glsentrydesc{##1}}%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\Genplacrfullformat}[2]{%  
   \firstacronymfont{\Glsentryshortpl{##1}}##2%  
   \footnote{\glsentrylongpl{##1}: \glsentrydesc{##1}}%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\glsentryfull}[1]{%  
    \glsentrylong{##1}\space  
      (\acronymfont{\glsentryshort{##1}})%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\Glsentryfull}[1]{%  
    \Glsentrylong{##1}\space  
      (\acronymfont{\glsentryshort{##1}})%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\glsentryfullpl}[1]{%  
    \glsentrylongpl{##1}\space  
      (\acronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##1}})%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\Glsentryfullpl}[1]{%  
    \Glsentrylongpl{##1}\space  
      (\acronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##1}})%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\acrfullfmt}[3]{%  
    \glslink[##1]{##2}{%  
     \glsentrylong{##2}##3\space  
      (\acronymfont{\glsentryshort{##2}})%  
    }%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\Acrfullfmt}[3]{%  
    \glslink[##1]{##2}{%  
     \Glsentrylong{##2}##3\space  
      (\acronymfont{\glsentryshort{##2}})%  
    }%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\ACRfullfmt}[3]{%  
    \glslink[##1]{##2}{%  
     \MakeTextUppercase{%  
       \glsentrylong{##2}##3\space  
         (\acronymfont{\glsentryshort{##2}})%  
     }%  
    }%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\acrfullplfmt}[3]{%  
    \glslink[##1]{##2}{%  
     \glsentrylongpl{##2}##3\space  
       (\acronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##2}})%  
    }%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\Acrfullplfmt}[3]{%  
    \glslink[##1]{##2}{%  
     \Glsentrylongpl{##2}##3\space  
       (\acronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##2}})%  
    }%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\ACRfullplfmt}[3]{%  
    \glslink[##1]{##2}{%  
     \MakeTextUppercase{%  
       \glsentrylongpl{##2}##3\space  
         (\acronymfont{\glsentryshortpl{##2}})%  
     }%  
    }%  
  }%  
  \renewcommand*{\acronymfont}[1]{\textsc{##1}}%  
  \renewcommand*{\acrpluralsuffix}{\glstextup{\glspluralsuffix}}%  
  \renewcommand*{\acronymsort}[2]{##2}%  
  \renewcommand*{\acronymentry}[1]{%  
   \Glsentrylong{##1}\space  
     (\MakeTextUppercase{\glsentryshort{##1}})}%  
}

Now I need to specify that I want to use this new style:

\setacronymstyle{custom-fn}

I also need to use a glossary style that suits this acronym style, for example altlist:

\setglossarystyle{altlist}

Once the acronym style has been set, I can define my acronyms:

\newacronym[description={set of tags for use in  
developing hypertext documents}]{html}{html}{Hyper  
Text Markup Language}  
\newacronym[description={language used to describe the  
layout of a document written in a markup language}]{css}  
{css}{Cascading Style Sheet}

The sample file sample-custom-acronym.tex illustrates this example.

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13.2 Displaying the List of Acronyms

The list of acronyms is just like any other type of glossary and can be displayed on its own using

\printglossary[type=\acronymtype]
or with all the other glossaries using \printglossaries. (If you use the acronym package option you can also use
\printacronyms[<options>]
as a synonym for
\printglossary[type=\acronymtype,<options>]
See §2.5 Acronym Options.)

However, care must be taken to choose a glossary style that’s appropriate to your acronym style. Alternatively, you can define your own custom style (see §15.2 Defining your own glossary style for further details).

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13.3 Upgrading From the glossary Package

Users of the obsolete glossary package may recall that the syntax used to define new acronyms has changed with the replacement glossaries package. In addition, the old glossary package created the command \<acr-name> when defining the acronym <acr-name>.

In order to facilitate migrating from the old package to the new one, the glossaries package13.1 provides the command:


\oldacronym  \oldacronym[<label>]{<abbrv>}{<long>}{<key-val list>}

This uses the same syntax as the glossary package’s method of defining acronyms. It is equivalent to:
\newacronym[<key-val list>]{<label>}{<abbrv>}{<long>}
In addition, \oldacronym also defines the commands \<label>, which is equivalent to \gls{<label>}, and \<label>*, which is equivalent to \Gls{<label>}. If <label> is omitted, <abbrv> is used. Since commands names must consist only of alphabetical characters, <label> must also only consist of alphabetical characters. Note that \<label> doesn’t allow you to use the first optional argument of \gls or \Gls — you will need to explicitly use \gls or \Gls to change the settings.

Recall that, in general, LATEX ignores spaces following command names consisting of alphabetical characters. This is also true for \<label> unless you additionally load the xspace package, but be aware that there are some issues with using xspace.13.2

The glossaries package doesn’t load the xspace package since there are both advantages and disadvantages to using \xspace in \<label>. If you don’t use the xspace package you need to explicitly force a space using \␣ (backslash space) however you can follow \<label> with additional text in square brackets (the final optional argument to \gls). If you use the xspace package you don’t need to escape the spaces but you can’t use the optional argument to insert text (you will have to explicitly use \gls).

To illustrate this, suppose I define the acronym “abc” as follows:

\oldacronym{abc}{example acronym}{}

This will create the command \abc and its starred version \abc*. Table 13.2 illustrates the effect of \abc (on subsequent use) according to whether or not the xspace package has been loaded. As can be seen from the final row in the table, the xspace package prevents the optional argument from being recognised.


Table 13.2: The effect of using xspace with \oldacronym
Code With xspace Without xspace
\abc. abc. abc.
\abc xyz abc xyz abcxyz
\abc\ xyz abc xyz abc xyz
\abc* xyz Abc xyz Abc xyz
\abc[’s] xyz abc [’s] xyz abc’s xyz

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14. Unsetting and Resetting Entry Flags

When using \gls, \glspl and their upper case variants it is possible that you may want to use the value given by the first key, even though you have already used the glossary entry. Conversely, you may want to use the value given by the text key, even though you haven’t used the glossary entry. The former can be achieved by one of the following commands:


\glsreset  \glsreset{<label>}


\glslocalreset  \glslocalreset{<label>}

while the latter can be achieved by one of the following commands:


\glsunset  \glsunset{<label>}


\glslocalunset  \glslocalunset{<label>}

You can also reset or unset all entries for a given glossary or list of glossaries using:


\glsresetall  \glsresetall[<glossary list>]


\glslocalresetall  \glslocalresetall[<glossary list>]


\glsunsetall  \glsunsetall[<glossary list>]


\glslocalunsetall  \glslocalunsetall[<glossary list>]

where <glossary list> is a comma-separated list of glossary labels. If omitted, all defined glossaries are assumed. For example, to reset all entries in the main glossary and the list of acronyms:

\glsresetall[main,acronym]

You can determine whether an entry’s first use flag is set using:


\ifglsused  \ifglsused{<label>}{<true part>}{<false part>}

where <label> is the label of the required entry. If the entry has been used, <true part> will be done, otherwise <false part> will be done.

Be careful when using commands such as \gls within an environment or command argument that gets processed multiple times as it can cause unwanted side-effects when the first use displayed text is different from subsequent use.

For example, the frame environment in beamer processes its argument for each overlay. This means that the first use flag will be unset on the first overlay and subsequent overlays will use the non-first use form.

Consider the following example:

\documentclass{beamer}  
\usepackage{glossaries}  
\newacronym{svm}{SVM}{support vector machine}  
\begin{document}  
\begin{frame}  
 \frametitle{Frame 1}  
 \begin{itemize}  
  \item<+-> \gls{svm}  
  \item<+-> Stuff.  
 \end{itemize}  
\end{frame}  
\end{document}

On the first overlay, \gls{svm} produces “support vector machine (SVM)” and then unsets the first use flag. When the second overlay is processed, \gls{svm} now produces “SVM”, which is unlikely to be the desired effect. I don’t know anyway around this and the only suggestion I can give is to explicitly reset each acronym on first use:

\begin{frame}  
 \frametitle{Frame 1}  
 \begin{itemize}  
  \item<+-> \glsreset{svm}\gls{svm}  
  \item<+-> Stuff.  
 \end{itemize}  
\end{frame}

This is non-optimal, but the beamer class is too complex for me to suggest an alternative solution.

The amsmath environments, such as align, also process their contents multiple times, but the glossaries package now checks for this.

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15. Glossary Styles

Glossaries vary from lists that simply contain a symbol with a terse description to lists of terms or phrases with lengthy descriptions. Some glossaries may have terms with associated symbols. Some may have hierarchical entries. There is therefore no single style that fits every type of glossary. The glossaries package comes with a number of pre-defined glossary styles, described in §15.1 Predefined Styles. You can choose one of these that best suits your type of glossary or, if none of them suit your document, you can defined your own style (see §15.2 Defining your own glossary style).

The glossary style can be set using the style key in the optional argument to \printglossary or using the command:


\setglossarystyle  \setglossarystyle{<style-name>}

(before the glossary is displayed).

Some of the predefined glossary styles may also be set using the style package option, it depends if the package in which they are defined is automatically loaded by the glossaries package.

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15.1 Predefined Styles

The predefined styles can accommodate numbered level 0 (main) and level 1 entries. See the package options entrycounter, counterwithin and subentrycounter described in §2.3 Glossary Appearance Options. There is a summary of available styles in table 15.1.


Table 15.1: Glossary Styles. An asterisk in the style name indicates anything that matches that doesn’t match any previously listed style (e.g. long3col* matches long3col, long3colheader, long3colborder and long3colheaderborder). A maximum level of 0 indicates a flat glossary (sub-entries are displayed in the same way as main entries). Where the maximum level is given as — there is no limit, but note that makeindex imposes a limit of 2 sub-levels. If the homograph column is checked, then the name is not displayed for sub-entries. If the symbol column is checked, then the symbol will be displayed.
Style Maximum Level Homograph Symbol
listdotted 0
sublistdotted 1
list* 1
altlist* 1
long*3col* 1
long4col* 1
altlong*4col* 1
long* 1
super*3col* 1
super4col* 1
altsuper*4col* 1
super* 1
*index* 2
treenoname*
*tree*
*alttree*
inline 1

The tabular-like styles that allow multi-line descriptions and page lists use the length \glsdescwidth \glsdescwidth to set the width of the description column and the length \glspagelistwidth \glspagelistwidth to set the width of the page list column.15.1 These will need to be changed using \setlength if the glossary is too wide. Note that the long4col and super4col styles (and their header and border variations) don’t use these lengths as they are designed for single line entries. Instead you should use the analogous altlong4col and altsuper4col styles. If you want to explicitly create a line-break within a multi-line description in a tabular-like style it’s better to use \newline instead of \\.

Note that if you use the style key in the optional argument to \printglossary, it will override any previous style settings for the given glossary, so if, for example, you do

\renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{}  
\printglossary[style=long]

then the new definition of \glsgroupskip will not have an affect for this glossary, as \glsgroupskip is redefined by style=long. Likewise, \setglossarystyle will also override any previous style definitions, so, again

\renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{}  
\setglossarystyle{long}

will reset \glsgroupskip back to its default definition for the named glossary style (long in this case). If you want to modify the styles, either use \newglossarystyle (described in the next section) or make the modifications after \setglossarystyle, e.g.:

\setglossarystyle{long}  
\renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{}

As from version 3.03, you can now use the package option nogroupskip to suppress the gap between groups for the default styles instead of redefining \glsgroupskip.

All the styles except for the three- and four-column styles and the listdotted style use the command


\glspostdescription  \glspostdescription

after the description. This simply displays a full stop by default. To eliminate this full stop (or replace it with something else, say, a comma) you will need to redefine \glspostdescription before the glossary is displayed. Alternatively, you can suppress it for a given entry by placing \nopostdesc in the entry’s description.

As from version 3.03 you can now use the package option nopostdot to suppress this full stop.

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15.1.1 List Styles

The styles described in this section are all defined in the package glossary-list. Since they all use the description environment, they are governed by the same parameters as that environment. These styles all ignore the entry’s symbol. Note that these styles will automatically be available unless you use the nolist or nostyles package options.

list
The list style uses the description environment. The entry name is placed in the optional argument of the \item command (so it will usually appear in bold by default). The description follows, and then the associated number list for that entry. The symbol is ignored. If the entry has child entries, the description and number list follows (but not the name) for each child entry. Groups are separated using \indexspace.
listgroup
The listgroup style is like list but the glossary groups have headings.
listhypergroup
The listhypergroup style is like listgroup but has a navigation line at the start of the glossary with links to each group that is present in the glossary. This requires an additional run through LATEX to ensure the group information is up to date. In the navigation line, each group is separated by


\glshypernavsep  \glshypernavsep

which defaults to a vertical bar with a space on either side. For example, to simply have a space separating each group, do:

\renewcommand*{\glshypernavsep}{\space}

Note that the hyper-navigation line is now (as from version 1.14) set inside the optional argument to \item instead of after it to prevent a spurious space at the start. This can be changed by redefining \glossaryheader, but note that this needs to be done after the glossary style has been set.

altlist
The altlist style is like list but the description starts on the line following the name. (As with the list style, the symbol is ignored.) Each child entry starts a new line, but as with the list style, the name associated with each child entry is ignored.
altlistgroup
The altlistgroup style is like altlist but the glossary groups have headings.
altlisthypergroup
The altlisthypergroup style is like altlistgroup but has a set of links to the glossary groups. The navigation line is the same as that for listhypergroup, described above.
listdotted
This style uses the description environment.15.2 Each entry starts with \item[], followed by the name followed by a dotted line, followed by the description. Note that this style ignores both the number list and the symbol. The length


\glslistdottedwidth  \glslistdottedwidth

governs where the description should start. This is a flat style, so child entries are formatted in the same way as the parent entries.

sublistdotted
This is a variation on the listdotted style designed for hierarchical glossaries. The main entries have just the name displayed. The sub entries are displayed in the same manner as listdotted.

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15.1.2 Longtable Styles

The styles described in this section are all defined in the package glossary-long. Since they all use the longtable environment, they are governed by the same parameters as that environment. Note that these styles will automatically be available unless you use the nolong or nostyles package options. These styles fully justify the description and page list columns. If you want ragged right formatting instead, use the analogous styles described in §15.1.3 Longtable Styles (Ragged Right).

long
The long style uses the longtable environment (defined by the longtable package). It has two columns: the first column contains the entry’s name and the second column contains the description followed by the number list. The entry’s symbol is ignored. Sub groups are separated with a blank row. The width of the first column is governed by the widest entry in that column. The width of the second column is governed by the length \glsdescwidth. Child entries have a similar format to the parent entries except that their name is suppressed.
longborder
The longborder style is like long but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
longheader
The longheader style is like long but has a header row.
longheaderborder
The longheaderborder style is like longheader but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
long3col
The long3col style is like long but has three columns. The first column contains the entry’s name, the second column contains the description and the third column contains the number list. The entry’s symbol is ignored. The width of the first column is governed by the widest entry in that column, the width of the second column is governed by the length \glsdescwidth, and the width of the third column is governed by the length \glspagelistwidth.
long3colborder
The long3colborder style is like the long3col style but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
long3colheader
The long3colheader style is like long3col but has a header row.
long3colheaderborder
The long3colheaderborder style is like long3colheader but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
long4col
The long4col style is like long3col but has an additional column in which the entry’s associated symbol appears. This style is used for brief single line descriptions. The column widths are governed by the widest entry in the given column. Use altlong4col for multi-line descriptions.
long4colborder
The long4colborder style is like the long4col style but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
long4colheader
The long4colheader style is like long4col but has a header row.
long4colheaderborder
The long4colheaderborder style is like long4colheader but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
altlong4col
The altlong4col style is like long4col but allows multi-line descriptions and page lists. The width of the description column is governed by the length \glsdescwidth and the width of the page list column is governed by the length \glspagelistwidth. The widths of the name and symbol columns are governed by the widest entry in the given column.
altlong4colborder
The altlong4colborder style is like the long4colborder but allows multi-line descriptions and page lists.
altlong4colheader
The altlong4colheader style is like long4colheader but allows multi-line descriptions and page lists.
altlong4colheaderborder
The altlong4colheaderborder style is like long4colheaderborder but allows multi-line descriptions and page lists.

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15.1.3 Longtable Styles (Ragged Right)

The styles described in this section are all defined in the package glossary-longragged. These styles are analogous to those defined in glossary-long but the multiline columns are left justified instead of fully justified. Since these styles all use the longtable environment, they are governed by the same parameters as that environment. The glossary-longragged package additionally requires the array package. Note that these styles will only be available if you explicitly load glossary-longragged:

\usepackage{glossaries}  
\usepackage{glossary-longragged}

Note that you can’t set these styles using the style package option since the styles aren’t defined until after the glossaries package has been loaded.

longragged
The longragged style has two columns: the first column contains the entry’s name and the second column contains the (left-justified) description followed by the number list. The entry’s symbol is ignored. Sub groups are separated with a blank row. The width of the first column is governed by the widest entry in that column. The width of the second column is governed by the length \glsdescwidth. Child entries have a similar format to the parent entries except that their name is suppressed.
longraggedborder
The longraggedborder style is like longragged but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
longraggedheader
The longraggedheader style is like longragged but has a header row.
longraggedheaderborder
The longraggedheaderborder style is like longraggedheader but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
longragged3col
The longragged3col style is like longragged but has three columns. The first column contains the entry’s name, the second column contains the (left justified) description and the third column contains the (left justified) number list. The entry’s symbol is ignored. The width of the first column is governed by the widest entry in that column, the width of the second column is governed by the length \glsdescwidth, and the width of the third column is governed by the length \glspagelistwidth.
longragged3colborder
The longragged3colborder style is like the longragged3col style but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
longragged3colheader
The longragged3colheader style is like longragged3col but has a header row.
longragged3colheaderborder
The longragged3colheaderborder style is like longragged3colheader but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
altlongragged4col
The altlongragged4col style is like longragged3col but has an additional column in which the entry’s associated symbol appears. The width of the description column is governed by the length \glsdescwidth and the width of the page list column is governed by the length \glspagelistwidth. The widths of the name and symbol columns are governed by the widest entry in the given column.
altlongragged4colborder
The altlongragged4colborder style is like the altlongragged4col but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
altlongragged4colheader
The altlongragged4colheader style is like altlongragged4col but has a header row.
altlongragged4colheaderborder
The altlongragged4colheaderborder style is like altlongragged4colheader but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.

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15.1.4 Supertabular Styles

The styles described in this section are all defined in the package glossary-super. Since they all use the supertabular environment, they are governed by the same parameters as that environment. Note that these styles will automatically be available unless you use the nosuper or nostyles package options. In general, the longtable environment is better, but there are some circumstances where it is better to use supertabular.15.3 These styles fully justify the description and page list columns. If you want ragged right formatting instead, use the analogous styles described in §15.1.5 Supertabular Styles (Ragged Right).

super
The super style uses the supertabular environment (defined by the supertabular package). It has two columns: the first column contains the entry’s name and the second column contains the description followed by the number list. The entry’s symbol is ignored. Sub groups are separated with a blank row. The width of the first column is governed by the widest entry in that column. The width of the second column is governed by the length \glsdescwidth. Child entries have a similar format to the parent entries except that their name is suppressed.
superborder
The superborder style is like super but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
superheader
The superheader style is like super but has a header row.
superheaderborder
The superheaderborder style is like superheader but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
super3col
The super3col style is like super but has three columns. The first column contains the entry’s name, the second column contains the description and the third column contains the number list. The entry’s symbol is ignored. The width of the first column is governed by the widest entry in that column. The width of the second column is governed by the length \glsdescwidth. The width of the third column is governed by the length \glspagelistwidth.
super3colborder
The super3colborder style is like the super3col style but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
super3colheader
The super3colheader style is like super3col but has a header row.
super3colheaderborder
The super3colheaderborder style is like the super3colheader style but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
super4col
The super4col style is like super3col but has an additional column in which the entry’s associated symbol appears. This style is designed for entries with brief single line descriptions. The column widths are governed by the widest entry in the given column. Use altsuper4col for multi-line descriptions.
super4colborder
The super4colborder style is like the super4col style but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
super4colheader
The super4colheader style is like super4col but has a header row.
super4colheaderborder
The super4colheaderborder style is like the super4colheader style but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
altsuper4col
The altsuper4col style is like super4col but allows multi-line descriptions and page lists. The width of the description column is governed by the length \glsdescwidth and the width of the page list column is governed by the length \glspagelistwidth. The width of the name and symbol columns is governed by the widest entry in the given column.
altsuper4colborder
The altsuper4colborder style is like the super4colborder style but allows multi-line descriptions and page lists.
altsuper4colheader
The altsuper4colheader style is like super4colheader but allows multi-line descriptions and page lists.
altsuper4colheaderborder
The altsuper4colheaderborder style is like super4colheaderborder but allows multi-line descriptions and page lists.

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15.1.5 Supertabular Styles (Ragged Right)

The styles described in this section are all defined in the package glossary-superragged. These styles are analogous to those defined in glossary-super but the multiline columns are left justified instead of fully justified. Since these styles all use the supertabular environment, they are governed by the same parameters as that environment. The glossary-superragged package additionally requires the array package. Note that these styles will only be available if you explicitly load glossary-superragged:

\usepackage{glossaries}  
\usepackage{glossary-superragged}

Note that you can’t set these styles using the style package option since the styles aren’t defined until after the glossaries package has been loaded.

superragged
The superragged style uses the supertabular environment (defined by the supertabular package). It has two columns: the first column contains the entry’s name and the second column contains the (left justified) description followed by the number list. The entry’s symbol is ignored. Sub groups are separated with a blank row. The width of the first column is governed by the widest entry in that column. The width of the second column is governed by the length \glsdescwidth. Child entries have a similar format to the parent entries except that their name is suppressed.
superraggedborder
The superraggedborder style is like superragged but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
superraggedheader
The superraggedheader style is like superragged but has a header row.
superraggedheaderborder
The superraggedheaderborder style is like superraggedheader but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
superragged3col
The superragged3col style is like superragged but has three columns. The first column contains the entry’s name, the second column contains the (left justified) description and the third column contains the (left justified) number list. The entry’s symbol is ignored. The width of the first column is governed by the widest entry in that column. The width of the second column is governed by the length \glsdescwidth. The width of the third column is governed by the length \glspagelistwidth.
superragged3colborder
The superragged3colborder style is like the superragged3col style but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
superragged3colheader
The superragged3colheader style is like superragged3col but has a header row.
superragged3colheaderborder
The superragged3colheaderborder style is like superragged3colheader but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
altsuperragged4col
The altsuperragged4col style is like superragged3col but has an additional column in which the entry’s associated symbol appears. The column widths for the name and symbol column are governed by the widest entry in the given column.
altsuperragged4colborder
The altsuperragged4colborder style is like the altsuperragged4col style but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.
altsuperragged4colheader
The altsuperragged4colheader style is like altsuperragged4col but has a header row.
altsuperragged4colheaderborder
The altsuperragged4colheaderborder style is like altsuperragged4colheader but has horizontal and vertical lines around it.

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15.1.6 Tree-Like Styles

The styles described in this section are all defined in the package glossary-tree. These styles are designed for hierarchical glossaries but can also be used with glossaries that don’t have sub-entries. These styles will display the entry’s symbol if it exists. Note that these styles will automatically be available unless you use the notree or nostyles package options.

index
The index style is similar to the way indices are usually formatted in that it has a hierarchical structure up to three levels (the main level plus two sub-levels). The name is typeset in bold, and if the symbol is present it is set in parentheses after the name and before the description. Sub-entries are indented and also include the name, the symbol in brackets (if present) and the description. Groups are separated using \indexspace.
indexgroup
The indexgroup style is similar to the index style except that each group has a heading.
indexhypergroup
The indexhypergroup style is like indexgroup but has a set of links to the glossary groups. The navigation line is the same as that for listhypergroup, described above.
tree
The tree style is similar to the index style except that it can have arbitrary levels. (Note that makeindex is limited to three levels, so you will need to use xindy if you want more than three levels.) Each sub-level is indented by \glstreeindent \glstreeindent. Note that the name, symbol (if present) and description are placed in the same paragraph block. If you want the name to be apart from the description, use the alttree style instead. (See below.)
treegroup
The treegroup style is similar to the tree style except that each group has a heading.
treehypergroup
The treehypergroup style is like treegroup but has a set of links to the glossary groups. The navigation line is the same as that for listhypergroup, described above.
treenoname
The treenoname style is like the tree style except that the name for each sub-entry is ignored.
treenonamegroup
The treenonamegroup style is similar to the treenoname style except that each group has a heading.
treenonamehypergroup
The treenonamehypergroup style is like treenonamegroup but has a set of links to the glossary groups. The navigation line is the same as that for listhypergroup, described above.
alttree
The alttree style is similar to the tree style except that the indentation for each level is determined by the width of the text specified by


\glssetwidest  \glssetwidest[<level>]{<text>}

The optional argument <level> indicates the level, where 0 indicates the top-most level, 1 indicates the first level sub-entries, etc. If \glssetwidest hasn’t been used for a given sub-level, the level 0 widest text is used instead. If <level> is omitted, 0 is assumed.

For each level, the name is placed to the left of the paragraph block containing the symbol (optional) and the description. If the symbol is present, it is placed in parentheses before the description.

alttreegroup
The alttreegroup is like the alttree style except that each group has a heading.
alttreehypergroup
The alttreehypergroup style is like alttreegroup but has a set of links to the glossary groups. The navigation line is the same as that for listhypergroup, described above.

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15.1.7 Multicols Style

The glossary-mcols package provides tree-like styles that are in the multicols environment (defined by the multicol package). The style names are as their analogous tree styles (as defined in §15.1.6 Tree-Like Styles) but are prefixed with “mcol”. For example, the mcolindex style is essentially the index style but put in a multicols environment. For the complete list, see table 15.2.

Note that glossary-mcols is not loaded by glossaries. If you want to use any of the multicol styles in that package you need to load it explicitly with \usepackage and set the required glossary style using \setglossarystyle.

The default number of columns is 2, but can be changed by redefining


\glsmcols  \glsmcols

to the required number. For example, for a three column glossary:

\usepackage{glossary-mcols}  
\renewcommand*{\glsmcols}{3}  
\setglossarystyle{mcolindex}


Table 15.2: Multicolumn Styles
glossary-mcols Style Analogous Tree Style
mcolindex index
mcolindexgroup indexgroup
mcolindexhypergroup indexhypergroup
mcoltree tree
mcoltreegroup treegroup
mcoltreehypergroup treehypergroup
mcoltreenoname treenoname
mcoltreenonamegroup treenonamegroup
mcoltreenonamehypergroup treenonamehypergroup
mcolalttree alttree
mcolalttreegroup alttreegroup
mcolalttreehypergroup alttreehypergroup

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15.1.8 In-Line Style

This section covers the glossary-inline package that supplies the inline style. This is a style that is designed for in-line use (as opposed to block styles, such as lists or tables). This style doesn’t display the number list.

You will most likely need to redefine \glossarysection with this style. For example, suppose you are required to have your glossaries and list of acronyms in a footnote, you can do:

 \usepackage{glossary-inline}  
 \renewcommand*{\glossarysection}[2][]{\textbf{#1}: }  
 \setglossarystyle{inline}

Note that you need to include glossary-inline with \usepackage as it’s not automatically included by the glossaries package and then set the style using \setglossarystyle.

Where you need to include your glossaries as a footnote you can do:

\footnote{\printglossaries}

The inline style is governed by the following:


\glsinlineseparator  \glsinlineseparator

This defaults to “; ” and is used between main (i.e. level 0) entries.


\glsinlinesubseparator  \glsinlinesubseparator

This defaults to “, ” and is used between sub-entries.


\glsinlineparentchildseparator  \glsinlineparentchildseparator

This defaults to “: ” and is used between a parent main entry and its first sub-entry.


\glspostinline  \glspostinline

This defaults to “; ” and is used at the end of the glossary.

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15.2 Defining your own glossary style

If the predefined styles don’t fit your requirements, you can define your own style using:


\newglossarystyle  \newglossarystyle{<name>}{<definitions>}

where <name> is the name of the new glossary style (to be used in \setglossarystyle). The second argument <definitions> needs to redefine all of the following:


theglossary  theglossary

This environment defines how the main body of the glossary should be typeset. Note that this does not include the section heading, the glossary preamble (defined by \glossarypreamble) or the glossary postamble (defined by \glossarypostamble). For example, the list style uses the description environment, so the theglossary environment is simply redefined to begin and end the description environment.


\glossaryheader  \glossaryheader

This macro indicates what to do at the start of the main body of the glossary. Note that this is not the same as \glossarypreamble, which should not be affected by changes in the glossary style. The list glossary style redefines \glossaryheader to do nothing, whereas the longheader glossary style redefines \glossaryheader to do a header row.


\glsgroupheading  \glsgroupheading{<label>}

This macro indicates what to do at the start of each logical block within the main body of the glossary. If you use makeindex the glossary is sub-divided into a maximum of twenty-eight logical blocks that are determined by the first character of the sort key (or name key if the sort key is omitted). The sub-divisions are in the following order: symbols, numbers, A, …, Z. If you use xindy, the sub-divisions depend on the language settings.

Note that the argument to \glsgroupheading is a label not the group title. The group title can be obtained via


\glsgetgrouptitle  \glsgetgrouptitle{<label>}

This obtains the title as follows: if <label> consists of a single non-active character or <label> is equal to glssymbols or glsnumbers and \<label>groupname exists, this is taken to be the title, otherwise the title is just <label>. (The “symbols” group has the label glssymbols, so the command \glssymbolsgroupname is used, and the “numbers” group has the label glsnumbers, so the command \glsnumbersgrouptitle is used.) If you are using xindy, <label> may be an active character (for example ø), in which case the title will be set to just <label>. You can redefine \glsgetgrouptitle if this is unsuitable for your document.

A navigation hypertarget can be created using


\glsnavhypertarget  \glsnavhypertarget{<label>}{<text>}

For further details about \glsnavhypertarget, see the documented code (glossaries-code.pdf).

Most of the predefined glossary styles redefine \glsgroupheading to simply ignore its argument. The listhypergroup style redefines \glsgroupheading as follows:

\renewcommand*{\glsgroupheading}[1]{%  
\item[\glsnavhypertarget{##1}{\glsgetgrouptitle{##1}}]}

See also \glsgroupskip below. (Note that command definitions within \newglossarystyle must use ##1 instead of #1 etc.)


\glsgroupskip  \glsgroupskip

This macro determines what to do after one logical group but before the header for the next logical group. The list glossary style simply redefines \glsgroupskip to be \indexspace, whereas the tabular-like styles redefine \glsgroupskip to produce a blank row.

As from version 3.03, the package option nogroupskip can be used to suppress this default gap for the predefined styles.


\glossentry  \glossentry{<label>}{<number list>}

This macro indicates what to do for each level 0 glossary entry. The entry label is given by <label> and the associated number list is given by <number list>. You can redefine \glossentry to use commands like \glossentryname{<label>}, \glossentrydesc{<label>} and \glossentrysymbol{<label>} to display the name, description and symbol fields, or to access other fields, use commands like \glsentryuseri{<label>}. (See §9 Using Glossary Terms Without Links for further details.) You can also use the following commands:


\glsentryitem  \glsentryitem{<label>}

This macro will increment and display the associated counter for the main (level 0) entries if the entrycounter or counterwithin package options have been used. This macro is typically called by \glossentry before \glstarget. The format of the counter is controlled by the macro


\glsentrycounterlabel  \glsentrycounterlabel

Each time you use a glossary entry it creates a hyperlink (if hyperlinks are enabled) to the relevant line in the glossary. Your new glossary style must therefore redefine \glossentry to set the appropriate target. This is done using


\glstarget  \glstarget{<label>}{<text>}

where <label> is the entry’s label. Note that you don’t need to worry about whether the hyperref package has been loaded, as \glstarget won’t create a target if \hypertarget hasn’t been defined.

For example, the list style defines \glossentry as follows:

  \renewcommand*{\glossentry}[2]{%  
    \item[\glsentryitem{##1}%  
          \glstarget{##1}{\glossentryname{##1}}]  
       \glossentrydesc{##1}\glspostdescription\space ##2}

Note also that <number list> will always be of the form


\glossaryentrynumbers{\relax
\setentrycounter[<Hprefix>]{<counter name>}<format cmd>{<number(s)>}}

where <number(s)> may contain \delimN (to delimit individual numbers) and/or \delimR (to indicate a range of numbers). There may be multiple occurrences of \setentrycounter[<Hprefix>]{<counter name>}<format cmd>{<number(s)>}, but note that the entire number list is enclosed within the argument of \glossaryentrynumbers. The user can redefine this to change the way the entire number list is formatted, regardless of the glossary style. However the most common use of \glossaryentrynumbers is to provide a means of suppressing the number list altogether. (In fact, the nonumberlist option redefines \glossaryentrynumbers to ignore its argument.) Therefore, when you define a new glossary style, you don’t need to worry about whether the user has specified the nonumberlist package option.


\subglossentry  \subglossentry{<level>}{<label>}{<number list>}

This is used to display sub-entries. The first argument, <level>, indicates the sub-entry level. This must be an integer from 1 (first sub-level) onwards. The remaining arguments are analogous to those for \glossentry described above.


\glssubentryitem  \glssubentryitem{<label>}

This macro will increment and display the associated counter for the level 1 entries if the subentrycounter package option has been used. This macro is typically called by \subglossentry before \glstarget. The format of the counter is controlled by the macro


\glssubentrycounterlabel  \glssubentrycounterlabel

Note that \printglossary (which \printglossaries calls) sets


\currentglossary  \currentglossary

to the current glossary label, so it’s possible to create a glossary style that varies according to the glossary type.

For further details of these commands, see “Displaying the glossary” in the documented code (glossaries-code.pdf).

Example 20 (Creating a completely new style)

If you want a completely new style, you will need to redefine all of the commands and the environment listed above.

For example, suppose you want each entry to start with a bullet point. This means that the glossary should be placed in the itemize environment, so theglossary should start and end that environment. Let’s also suppose that you don’t want anything between the glossary groups (so \glsgroupheading and \glsgroupskip should do nothing) and suppose you don’t want anything to appear immediately after \begin{theglossary} (so \glossaryheader should do nothing). In addition, let’s suppose the symbol should appear in brackets after the name, followed by the description and last of all the number list should appear within square brackets at the end. Then you can create this new glossary style, called, say, mylist, as follows:

 \newglossarystyle{mylist}{%  
 % put the glossary in the itemize environment:  
 \renewenvironment{theglossary}%  
   {\begin{itemize}}{\end{itemize}}%  
 % have nothing after \begin{theglossary}:  
 \renewcommand*{\glossaryheader}{}%  
 % have nothing between glossary groups:  
 \renewcommand*{\glsgroupheading}[1]{}%  
 \renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{}%  
 % set how each entry should appear:  
 \renewcommand*{\glossentry}[2]{%  
 \item % bullet point  
 \glstarget{##1}{\glossentryname{##1}}% the entry name  
 \space (\glossentrysymbol{##1})% the symbol in brackets  
 \space \glossentrydesc{##1}% the description  
 \space [##2]% the number list in square brackets  
 }%  
 % set how sub-entries appear:  
 \renewcommand*{\subglossentry}[3]{%  
   \glossentry{##2}{##3}}%  
 }

Note that this style creates a flat glossary, where sub-entries are displayed in exactly the same way as the top level entries. It also hasn’t used \glsentryitem or \glssubentryitem so it won’t be affected by the entrycounter, counterwithin or subentrycounter package options.

Variations:

____________________________

Example 21 (Creating a new glossary style based on an existing style)

If you want to define a new style that is a slightly modified version of an existing style, you can use \setglossarystyle within the second argument of \newglossarystyle followed by whatever alterations you require. For example, suppose you want a style like the list style but you don’t want the extra vertical space created by \indexspace between groups, then you can create a new glossary style called, say, mylist as follows:

\newglossarystyle{mylist}{%  
\setglossarystyle{list}% base this style on the list style  
\renewcommand{\glsgroupskip}{}% make nothing happen  
                              % between groups  
}

(In this case, you can actually achieve the same effect using the list style in combination with the package option nogroupskip.)

____________________________

Example 22 (Example: creating a glossary style that uses the user1, …, user6 keys)

Suppose each entry not only has an associated symbol, but also units (stored in user1) and dimension (stored in user2). Then you can define a glossary style that displays each entry in a longtable as follows:

\newglossarystyle{long6col}{%  
 % put the glossary in a longtable environment:  
 \renewenvironment{theglossary}%  
  {\begin{longtable}{lp{\glsdescwidth}cccp{\glspagelistwidth}}}%  
  {\end{longtable}}%  
 % Set the table’s header:  
 \renewcommand*{\glossaryheader}{%  
  \bfseries Term & \bfseries Description & \bfseries Symbol &  
  \bfseries Units & \bfseries Dimensions & \bfseries Page List  
  \\\endhead}%  
 % No heading between groups:  
  \renewcommand*{\glsgroupheading}[1]{}%  
 % Main (level 0) entries displayed in a row optionally numbered:  
  \renewcommand*{\glossentry}[2]{%  
    \glsentryitem{##1}% Entry number if required  
    \glstarget{##1}{\glossentryname{##1}}% Name  
    & \glossentrydesc{##1}% Description  
    & \glossentrysymbol{##1}% Symbol  
    & \glsentryuseri{##1}% Units  
    & \glsentryuserii{##1}% Dimensions  
    & ##2% Page list  
    \tabularnewline % end of row  
  }%  
 % Similarly for sub-entries (no sub-entry numbers):  
 \renewcommand*{\subglossentry}[3]{%  
    % ignoring first argument (sub-level)  
    \glstarget{##2}{\glossentryname{##2}}% Name  
    & \glossentrydesc{##2}% Description  
    & \glossentrysymbol{##2}% Symbol  
    & \glsentryuseri{##2}% Units  
    & \glsentryuserii{##2}% Dimensions  
    & ##3% Page list  
    \tabularnewline % end of row  
  }%  
 % Nothing between groups:  
 \renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{}%  
}

____________________________

Top

16. Utilities

This section describes some utility commands. Additional commands can be found in the documented code (glossaries-code.pdf).

Some of the commands described here take a comma-separated list as an argument. As with LATEX’s \@for command, make sure your list doesn’t have an unwanted spaces in it as they don’t get stripped.


\forallglossaries  \forallglossaries[<glossary list>]{<cs>}{<body>}

This iterates through <glossary list>, a comma-separated list of glossary labels (as supplied when the glossary was defined). At each iteration <cs> (which must be a control sequence) is set to the glossary label for the current iteration and <body> is performed. If <glossary list> is omitted, the default is to iterate over all glossaries.


\forglsentries  \forglsentries[<glossary label>]{<cs>}{<body>}

This iterates through all entries in the glossary given by <glossary label>. At each iteration <cs> (which must be a control sequence) is set to the entry label for the current iteration and <body> is performed. If <glossary label> is omitted, \glsdefaulttype (usually the main glossary) is used.


\forallglsentries  \forallglsentries[<glossary list>]{<cs>}{<body>}

This is like \forglsentries but for each glossary in <glossary list> (a comma-separated list of glossary labels). If <glossary list> is omitted, the default is the list of all defined glossaries. At each iteration <cs> is set to the entry label and <body> is performed. (The current glossary label can be obtained using \glsentrytype{<cs>} within <body>.)


\ifglossaryexists  \ifglossaryexists<label><true part><false part>

This checks if the glossary given by <label> exists. If it does <true part> is performed, otherwise <false part>.


\ifglsentryexists  \ifglsentryexists<label><true part><false part>

This checks if the glossary entry given by <label> exists. If it does <true part> is performed, otherwise <false part>. (Note that \ifglsentryexists will always be true after the containing glossary has been displayed via \printglossary or \printglossaries even if the entry is explicitly defined later in the document. This is because the entry has to be defined before it can be displayed in the glossary, see §4.8.1 Technical Issues for further details.)


\glsdoifexists  \glsdoifexists{<label>}{<code>}

Does <code> if the entry given by <label> exists. If it doesn’t exist, an error is generated. (This command uses \ifglsentryexists.)


\glsdoifnoexists  \glsdoifnoexists{<label>}{<code>}

Does the reverse of \glsdoifexists. (This command uses \ifglsentryexists.)


\glsdoifexistsorwarn  \glsdoifexistsorwanr{<label>}{<code>}

As \glsdoifexists but issues a warning rather than an error if the entry doesn’t exist.


\ifglsused  \ifglsused<label><true part><false part>

See §14 Unsetting and Resetting Entry Flags.


\ifglshaschildren  \ifglshaschildren<label><true part><false part>

This checks if the glossary entry given by <label> has any sub-entries. If it does, <true part> is performed, otherwise <false part>.


\ifglshasparent  \ifglshasparent<label><true part><false part>

This checks if the glossary entry given by <label> has a parent entry. If it does, <true part> is performed, otherwise <false part>.


\ifglshassymbol  \ifglshassymbol{<label>}{<true part>}{<false part>}

This checks if the glossary entry given by <label> has had the symbol field set. If it has, <true part> is performed, otherwise <false part>.


\ifglshaslong  \ifglshaslong{<label>}{<true part>}{<false part>}

This checks if the glossary entry given by <label> has had the long field set. If it has, <true part> is performed, otherwise <false part>. This should be true for any entry that has been defined via \newacronym. There is no check for the existance of <label>.


\ifglshasshort  \ifglshasshort{<label>}{<true part>}{<false part>}

This checks if the glossary entry given by <label> has had the short field set. If it has, <true part> is performed, otherwise <false part>. This should be true for any entry that has been defined via \newacronym. There is no check for the existance of <label>.


\ifglshasdesc  \ifglshasdesc{<label>}{<true part>}{<false part>}

This checks if the description field is non-empty for the entry given by <label>. If it has, <true part> is performed, otherwise <false part>. Compare with:


\ifglsdescsuppressed  \ifglsdescsuppressed{<label>}{<true part>}{<false part>}

This checks if the description field has been set to just \nopostdesc for the entry given by <label>. If it has, <true part> is performed, otherwise <false part>. There is no check for the existance of <label>.

For all other fields you can use:


\ifglshasfield{<field>}{<label>}{<true part>}{<false part>}

This checks if the field given by <field> for the entry identified by <label> is empty. If it is, <true part> is performed, otherwise <false part>. If the field supplied is unrecognised <false part> is performed and a warning is issued. Unlike the above commands, such as \ifglshasshort, an error occurs if the entry is undefined.

Top

17. Prefixes or Determiners

The glossaries-prefix package provides additional keys that can be used as prefixes. For example, if you want to specify determiners (such as “a”, “an” or “the”). The glossaries-prefix package automatically loads the glossaries package and has the same package options.

The extra keys for \newglossaryentry are as follows:

prefix
The prefix associated with the text key. This defaults to nothing.
prefixplural
The prefix associated with the plural key. This defaults to nothing.
prefixfirst
The prefix associated with the first key. If omitted, this defaults to the value of the prefix key.
prefixfirstplural
The prefix associated with the firstplural key. If omitted, this defaults to the value of the prefixplural key.

Example 23 (Defining Determiners)

Here’s the start of my example document:

documentclass{article}  
\usepackage[colorlinks]{hyperref}  
\usepackage[toc,acronym]{glossaries-prefix}

Note that I’ve simply replaced glossaries from previous sample documents with glossaries-prefix. Now for a sample definition17.1:

\newglossaryentry{sample}{name={sample},%  
  description={an example},%  
  prefix={a~},%  
  prefixplural={the\space}%  
}

Note that I’ve had to explicitly insert a space after the prefix. This allows for the possibility of prefixes that shouldn’t have a space, such as:

\newglossaryentry{oeil}{name={oeil},  
  plural={yeux},  
  description={eye},  
  prefix={l’},  
  prefixplural={les\space}}

Where a space is required at the end of the prefix, you must use a spacing command, such as \space, \␣ (backslash space) or ~ due to the automatic spacing trimming performed in <key>=<value> options.

The prefixes can also be used with acronyms. For example:

\newacronym  
 [%  
   prefix={an\space},prefixfirst={a~}%  
 ]{svm}{SVM}{support vector machine}

____________________________

The glossaries-prefix package provides convenient commands to use these prefixes with commands such as \gls. Note that the prefix is not considered part of the link text, so it’s not included in the hyperlink (where hyperlinks are enabled).


\pgls  \pgls[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

This is prepends the value of the prefix key (or prefixfirst key, on first use) in front of \gls[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>].


\Pgls  \Pgls[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

If the prefix key (or prefixfirst, on first use) has been set, this displays the value of that key with the first letter converted to upper case followed by \gls[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]. If that key hasn’t been set, this is equivalent to \Gls[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>].


\PGLS  \PGLS[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

As \pgls but converts the prefix to upper case and uses \GLS instead of \gls.


\pglspl  \pglspl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

This is prepends the value of the prefixplural key (or prefixfirstplural key, on first use) in front of \glspl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>].


\Pglspl  \Pglspl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

If the prefixplural key (or prefixfirstplural, on first use) has been set, this displays the value of that key with the first letter converted to upper case followed by \glspl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]. If that key hasn’t been set, this is equivalent to \Glspl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>].


\PGLSpl  \PGLSpl[<options>]{<label>}[<insert>]

As \pglspl but converts the prefix to upper case and uses \GLSpl instead of \glspl.

Example 24 (Using Prefixes)

Continuing from Example 23, now that I’ve defined my entries, I can use them in the text via the above commands:

First use: \pgls{svm}. Next use: \pgls{svm}.  
Singular: \pgls{sample}, \pgls{oeil}.  
Plural: \pglspl{sample}, \pglspl{oeil}.

which produces:

First use: a support vector machine (SVM). Next use: an SVM. Singular: a sample, l’oeil. Plural: the samples, les yeux.

For a complete document, see sample-prefix.tex.

____________________________

This package also provides the following commands:


\ifglshasprefix  \ifglshasprefix{<label>}{<true part>}{<false part>}

Does <true part> if the entry identified by <label> has a non-empty value for the prefix key.

This package also provides the following commands:


\ifglshasprefixplural  \ifglshasprefixplural{<label>}{<true part>}{<false part>}

Does <true part> if the entry identified by <label> has a non-empty value for the prefixplural key.


\ifglshasprefixfirst  \ifglshasprefixfirst{<label>}{<true part>}{<false part>}

Does <true part> if the entry identified by <label> has a non-empty value for the prefixfirst key.

\ifglshasprefixfirstplural 


\ifglshasprefixfirstplural{<label>}{<true part>}{<false part>}

Does <true part> if the entry identified by <label> has a non-empty value for the prefixfirstplural key.


\glsentryprefix  \glsentryprefix{<label>}

Displays the value of the prefix key for the entry given by <label>. (No check is performed to determine if the entry exists.)


\glsentryprefixfirst  \glsentryprefixfirst{<label>}

Displays the value of the prefixfirst key for the entry given by <label>. (No check is performed to determine if the entry exists.)


\glsentryprefixplural  \glsentryprefixplural{<label>}

Displays the value of the prefixplural key for the entry given by <label>. (No check is performed to determine if the entry exists.)

\glsentryprefixfirstplural 


\glsentryprefixfirstplural{<label>}

Displays the value of the prefixfirstplural key for the entry given by <label>. (No check is performed to determine if the entry exists.)

There are also variants that convert the first letter to upper case17.2:


\Glsentryprefix  \Glsentryprefix{<label>}


\Glsentryprefixfirst  \Glsentryprefixfirst{<label>}


\Glsentryprefixplural  \Glsentryprefixplural{<label>}

\Glsentryprefixfirstplural 


\Glsentryprefixfirstplural{<label>}

As with analoguous commands such as \Glsentrytext, these commands aren’t expandable so can’t be used in PDF bookmarks.

Example 25 (Adding Determiner to Glossary Style)

You can use the above commands to define a new glossary style that uses the determiner. For example, the following style is a slight modification of the list style that inserts the prefix before the name:

\newglossarystyle{plist}{%  
  \setglossarystyle{list}%  
  \renewcommand*{\glossentry}[2]{%  
    \item[\glsentryitem{##1}%  
          \Glsentryprefix{##1}%  
          \glstarget{##1}{\glossentryname{##1}}]  
       \glossentrydesc{##1}\glspostdescription\space ##2}%  
}

____________________________

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18. Accessibility Support

Limited accessibility support is provided by the accompanying glossaries-accsupp package, but note that this package is experimental and it requires the accsupp package which is also listed as experimental. This package defines additional keys that may be used when defining glossary entries. The keys are as follows:

access
The replacement text corresponding to the name key.
textaccess
The replacement text corresponding to the text key.
firstaccess
The replacement text corresponding to the first key.
pluralaccess
The replacement text corresponding to the plural key.
firstpluralaccess
The replacement text corresponding to the firstplural key.
symbolaccess
The replacement text corresponding to the symbol key.
symbolpluralaccess
The replacement text corresponding to the symbolplural key.
descriptionaccess
The replacement text corresponding to the description key.
descriptionpluralaccess
The replacement text corresponding to the descriptionplural key.
longaccess
The replacement text corresponding to the long key (used by \newacronym).
shortaccess
The replacement text corresponding to the short key (used by \newacronym).
longpluralaccess
The replacement text corresponding to the longplural key (used by \newacronym).
shortpluralaccess
The replacement text corresponding to the shortplural key (used by \newacronym).

For example:

\newglossaryentry{tex}{name={\TeX},description={Document  
preparation language},access={TeX}}

Now \gls{tex} will be equivalent to

\BeginAccSupp{ActualText=TeX}\TeX\EndAccSupp{}

The sample file sampleaccsupp.tex illustrates the glossaries-accsupp package.

See the documented code (glossaries-code.pdf) for further details. It is recommended that you also read the accsupp documentation.

Top

19. Troubleshooting

The glossaries package comes with a minimal file called minimalgls.tex which can be used for testing. This should be located in the samples subdirectory (folder) of the glossaries documentation directory. The location varies according to your operating system and TEX installation. For example, on my Linux partition it can be found in /usr/local/texlive/2013/texmf-dist/doc/latex/glossaries/. Further information on debugging LATEX code is available at http://www.dickimaw-_books.com/latex/minexample/.

Below is a list of the most frequently asked questions. For other queries, consult the glossaries FAQ. If that doesn’t help, try posting your query to somewhere like the comp.text.tex newsgroup, the LATEX Community Forum or TEX on StackExchange. Bug reports can be submitted via my package bug report form.

  1. Q. I get the error message:
    ! Undefined control sequence.  
    \in@ #1#2->\begingroup \def \in@@

    A. This error can occur if you have a fragile command in one of your entry definitions. In most cases using \glsnoexpandfields before defining your entry should fix this, but there are still a few fragile commands that will still cause this error even with \glsnoexpandfields. If this is the case put \protect in front of the fragile command.

  2. Q. I get the error message:
    Missing \begin{document}

    A. Check you are using an up to date version of the xkeyval package.

  3. Q. When I use xindy, I get the following error message:
    ERROR: CHAR: index 0 should be less than the length of  
    the string

    A. xindy discards all commands and braces from the sort string. If your sort string (either specified by the sort key or the name key) only consists of commands, this will be treated by xindy as an empty sort string, which produces an error message in newer versions of xindy. For example, the following will cause a problem:

    \newglossaryentry{alpha}{name={\ensuremath{\alpha}},  
      description=alpha}

    Either use a different sort key for the entry, for example:

    \newglossaryentry{alpha}{sort=alpha,  
      name={\ensuremath{\alpha}},  
      description=alpha}

    or, if all entries are like this, you may prefer to use the sort=use or sort=def package options. See §2.4 Sorting Options for further details of the sort option.

  4. Q. I’ve used the smallcaps option, but the acronyms are displayed in normal sized upper case letters.

    A. The smallcaps package option uses \textsc to typeset the acronyms. This command converts lower case letters to small capitals, while upper case letters remain their usual size. Therefore you need to specify the acronym in lower case letters.

  5. Q. My acronyms won’t break across a line when they’re expanded.

    A. PDFLATEX can break hyperlinks across a line, but LATEX can’t. If you can’t use PDFLATEX then disable the first use links using the package option hyperfirst=false.

  6. Q. How do I change the font that the acronyms are displayed in?

    A. The easiest way to do this is to specify the smaller package option and redefine \acronymfont to use the required typesetting command. For example, suppose you would like the acronyms displayed in a sans-serif font, then you can do:

    \usepackage[smaller]{glossaries}  
    \renewcommand*{\acronymfont}[1]{\textsf{#1}}

  7. Q. How do I change the font that the acronyms are displayed in on first use?

    A. The easiest way to do this is to specify the smaller package option and redefine \firstacronymfont to use the required command. Note that if you don’t want the acronym on subsequent use to use \textsmaller, you will also need to redefine \acronymfont, as above. For example to make the acronym emphasized on first use, but use the surrounding font for subsequent use, you can do:

    \usepackage[smaller]{glossaries}  
    \renewcommand*{\firstacronymfont}[1]{\emph{#1}}  
    \renewcommand*{\acronymfont}[1]{#1}

  8. Q. I don’t have Perl installed, do I have to use makeglossaries?

    A. No. Although it is strongly recommended, you don’t have to use makeglossaries. If you prefer a GUI application and have Java installed, you can use makeglossariesgui instead. Otherwise you can just call makeindex explicitly (see §1.3.3 Using makeindex explicitly). Note that you can’t use xindy if you don’t have Perl installed.

  9. Q. I’m used to using the glossary package: are there any instructions on migrating from the glossary package to the glossaries package?

    A. Read “Upgrading from the glossary package to the glossaries package” which should be available from the same location as this document.

  10. Q. I’m using babel but the fixed names haven’t been translated.

    A. The glossaries package currently only supports the following languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Irish, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian and Spanish. If you want to add another language, send me the translations, and I’ll add them to the next version.

    If you are using one of the above languages, but the text hasn’t been translated, try using the glossaries package option translate=babel. Also, try adding the language as a global option to the class file.

  11. Q. My glossaries haven’t appeared.

    A. Remember to do the following:

    Check the log files (.log, .glg etc) for any warnings.

  12. Q. Why is glossaries creating an empty .glo file?

    A. Because you haven’t used any entries in the main glossary via commands such as \gls. If you don’t want to use this glossary, you can suppress its creation via the package option nomain.

  13. Q. It is possible to change the rules used to sort the glossary entries?

    A. If it’s for an individual entry, then you can use the entry’s sort key to sort it according to a different term. If it’s for the entire alphabet, then you will need to use xindy (instead of makeindex) and use an appropriate xindy language module. Writing xindy modules or styles is beyond the scope of this manual. Further information about xindy can be found at the Xindy Web Site. There is also a link to the xindy mailing list from that site.

    If you want to sort according to order of definition or order of use, use the sort package option described in §2.4 Sorting Options.

  14. Q. I get an error when using TeX4HT with glossaries.

    A. TeX4HT seems to have a problem with the glossary styles that use \indexspace. I don’t know enough about TeX4HT to find out why. Either use a different glossary style or redefine the style command that uses \indexspace. For example, if you are using the list style, try:

    \renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{}

    or

    \renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{\item[]}

Top

Index

Symbols
\@gls@codepage  1
\@glsorder  2
\@istfilename  3
\@newglossary  4
\@xdylanguage  5

A \Ac  6
\ac  7
accsupp package  8, 9
\Acf  10
\acf  11
\Acfp  12
\acfp  13
\Acl  14
\acl  15
\Aclp  16
\aclp  17
\Acp  18
\acp  19
\ACRfull  20
\Acrfull  21, 22
\acrfull  23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28
\ACRfullfmt  29
\Acrfullfmt  30
\acrfullfmt  31, 32, 33
\ACRfullpl  34
\Acrfullpl  35, 36
\acrfullpl  37, 38
\ACRfullplfmt  39
\Acrfullplfmt  40
\acrfullplfmt  41
\ACRlong  42
\Acrlong  43, 44
\acrlong  45, 46
\ACRlongpl  47
\Acrlongpl  48, 49
\acrlongpl  50, 51
acronym styles:
    dua  52, 53, 54, 55
    dua-desc  56, 57
    footnote  58, 59, 60
    footnote-desc  61
    footnote-sc  62
    footnote-sc-desc  63, 64, 65, 66
    footnote-sm  67
    footnote-sm-desc  68
    long-sc-short  69, 70, 71, 72
    long-sc-short-desc  73
    long-short  74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79
    long-short-desc  80, 81, 82
    long-sm-short  83, 84, 85
    long-sm-short-desc  86
    sc-short-long  87
    sc-short-long-desc  88
    short-long  89
    short-long-desc  90
    sm-short-long  91
    sm-short-long-desc  92
\acronymentry  93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98
\acronymfont  99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109
\acronymname  110
\acronymsort  111, 112, 113, 114, 115
\acronymtype  116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126
\ACRshort  127
\Acrshort  128, 129
\acrshort  130, 131, 132
\ACRshortpl  133
\Acrshortpl  134, 135
\acrshortpl  136, 137
\Acs  138
\acs  139
\Acsp  140
\acsp  141
\addcontentsline  142
align (environment)  143
\altnewglossary  144
amsmath package  145
\andname  146
arara  147
array package  148, 149

B babel package  150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165
beamer class  166, 167
beamer package  168

C \chapter  169
\chapter*  170, 171
\currentglossary  172

D \DeclareAcronymList  173, 174, 175
\defentryfmt  176
\defglsentryfmt  177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186
\DefineAcronymShortcuts  187
\delimN  188
\delimR  189
description (environment)  190, 191, 192, 193, 194
\descriptionname  195
doc package  196, 197, 198
document (environment)  199, 200, 201

E \emph  202
entry location  203
\entryname  204
environments:
    align  205
    description  206, 207, 208, 209, 210
    document  211, 212, 213
    equation  214
    frame  215
    itemize  216
    longtable  217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222
    multicols  223, 224
    supertabular  225, 226, 227, 228, 229
    theglossary  230, 231, 232, 233
equation (environment)  234
etex package  235
etoolbox package  236, 237

F file types
    .alg  238
    .aux  239, 240, 241
    .glg  242, 243, 244, 245
    .glg2  246
    .glo  247, 248, 249, 250, 251
    .gls  252, 253, 254
    .glsdefs  255
    .ist  256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261
    .log  262
    .tex  263, 264
    .xdy  265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272
    glo2  273
    gls2  274
first use  275
    flag  276, 277
    text  278
\firstacronymfont  279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286
flowfram package  287
fmtcount package  288
\footnote  289
\forallglossaries  290
\forallglsentries  291
\forglsentries  292
frame (environment)  293

G \Genacrfullformat  294
\genacrfullformat  295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300
\GenericAcronymFields  301, 302, 303
\Genplacrfullformat  304
\genplacrfullformat  305, 306
german package  307
glossaries-accsupp package  308, 309, 310, 311, 312
glossaries-babel package  313, 314
glossaries-polyglossia package  315, 316
glossaries-prefix package  317, 318, 319, 320, 321
glossary counters:
    glossaryentry  322
    glossarysubentry  323
glossary package  324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329
glossary styles:
    altlist  330, 331, 332, 333, 334
    altlistgroup  335, 336
    altlisthypergroup  337
    altlong4col  338, 339, 340
    altlong4colborder  341
    altlong4colheader  342
    altlong4colheaderborder  343
    altlongragged4col  344, 345, 346
    altlongragged4colborder  347
    altlongragged4colheader  348, 349
    altlongragged4colheaderborder  350
    altsuper4col  351, 352, 353
    altsuper4colborder  354
    altsuper4colheader  355
    altsuper4colheaderborder  356
    altsuperragged4col  357, 358, 359
    altsuperragged4colborder  360
    altsuperragged4colheader  361, 362
    altsuperragged4colheaderborder  363
    alttree  364, 365, 366, 367
    alttreegroup  368, 369, 370
    alttreehypergroup  371, 372
    index  373, 374, 375, 376, 377
    indexgroup  378, 379, 380
    indexhypergroup  381, 382
    inline  383, 384, 385
    list  386, 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 393, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399
    listdotted  400, 401, 402
    listgroup  403, 404
    listhypergroup  405, 406, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411
    long  412, 413, 414, 415, 416
    long3col  417, 418, 419, 420, 421
    long3colborder  422, 423
    long3colheader  424, 425, 426
    long3colheaderborder  427, 428
    long4col  429, 430, 431, 432, 433
    long4colborder  434, 435
    long4colheader  436, 437, 438
    long4colheaderborder  439, 440
    longborder  441
    longheader  442, 443, 444
    longheaderborder  445, 446
    longragged  447, 448, 449, 450
    longragged3col  451, 452, 453, 454
    longragged3colborder  455
    longragged3colheader  456, 457
    longragged3colheaderborder  458
    longraggedborder  459
    longraggedheader  460, 461
    longraggedheaderborder  462
    mcolalttree  463
    mcolalttreegroup  464
    mcolalttreehypergroup  465
    mcolindex  466, 467
    mcolindexgroup  468
    mcolindexhypergroup  469
    mcoltree  470
    mcoltreegroup  471
    mcoltreehypergroup  472
    mcoltreenoname  473
    mcoltreenonamegroup  474
    mcoltreenonamehypergroup  475
    super  476, 477, 478, 479
    super3col  480, 481, 482, 483
    super3colborder  484
    super3colheader  485, 486
    super3colheaderborder  487
    super4col  488, 489, 490, 491, 492
    super4colborder  493, 494
    super4colheader  495, 496, 497
    super4colheaderborder  498, 499
    superborder  500
    superheader  501, 502
    superheaderborder  503, 504
    superragged  505, 506, 507, 508
    superragged3col  509, 510, 511, 512
    superragged3colborder  513
    superragged3colheader  514, 515
    superragged3colheaderborder  516
    superraggedborder  517
    superraggedheader  518, 519
    superraggedheaderborder  520
    tree  521, 522, 523, 524, 525, 526
    treegroup  527, 528, 529
    treehypergroup  530, 531
    treenoname  532, 533, 534
    treenonamegroup  535, 536, 537
    treenonamehypergroup  538, 539
glossary-inline package  540, 541
glossary-list package  542, 543, 544, 545, 546
glossary-long package  547, 548, 549, 550, 551, 552
glossary-longragged package  553, 554, 555
glossary-mcols package  556, 557, 558, 559
glossary-super package  560, 561, 562, 563, 564, 565
glossary-superragged package  566, 567, 568
glossary-tree package  569, 570, 571, 572, 573
glossaryentry (counter)  574, 575, 576, 577
\glossaryentrynumbers  578, 579, 580, 581
\glossaryheader  582, 583, 584, 585
\glossaryname  586, 587
\glossarypostamble  588, 589, 590
\glossarypreamble  591, 592, 593, 594
\glossarysection  595
\glossarystyle  596
glossarysubentry (counter)  597
\glossentry  598, 599, 600
\Glossentrydesc  601
\glossentrydesc  602, 603
\Glossentryname  604, 605
\glossentryname  606, 607, 608
\Glossentrysymbol  609
\glossentrysymbol  610, 611
\GLS  612, 613, 614, 615
\Gls  616, 617, 618, 619, 620, 621, 622, 623, 624, 625
\gls  626, 627, 628, 629, 630, 631, 632, 633, 634, 635, 636, 637, 638, 639, 640, 641, 642, 643, 644, 645, 646, 647, 648, 649, 650, 651, 652, 653, 654, 655, 656, 657, 658, 659, 660, 661, 662
\gls*  663
\glsadd  664
\glsaddall  665, 666
\glsaddall options
    types  667
\glsaddallunused  668
\glsaddkey  669, 670, 671, 672
\GlsAddXdyAttribute  673, 674
\GlsAddXdyCounters  675, 676
\GlsAddXdyLocation  677, 678
\glsautoprefix  679
\glscapscase  680, 681
\glsclearpage  682
\glsclosebrace  683
\glscustomtext  684, 685
\GlsDeclareNoHyperList  686, 687, 688, 689, 690
\glsdefaulttype  691, 692, 693, 694, 695, 696
\GLSdesc  697
\Glsdesc  698
\glsdesc  699
\glsdescwidth  700, 701, 702, 703, 704, 705, 706, 707, 708, 709, 710, 711
\glsdisablehyper  712, 713
\glsdisp  714, 715, 716, 717, 718, 719, 720, 721, 722
\glsdisplay  723, 724
\glsdisplayfirst  725, 726
\glsdisplaynumberlist  727, 728
\glsdoifexists  729
\glsdoifexistsorwarn  730
\glsdoifnoexists  731
\glsdosanitizesort  732
\glsenablehyper  733
\glsentrycounterlabel  734
\Glsentrydesc  735
\glsentrydesc  736
\Glsentrydescplural  737
\glsentrydescplural  738
\Glsentryfirst  739
\glsentryfirst  740
\Glsentryfirstplural  741
\glsentryfirstplural  742
\glsentryfmt  743, 744, 745, 746, 747, 748, 749, 750, 751, 752, 753
\Glsentryfull  754
\glsentryfull  755, 756, 757, 758, 759, 760
\Glsentryfullpl  761
\glsentryfullpl  762
\glsentryitem  763, 764
\Glsentrylong  765, 766, 767, 768
\glsentrylong  769, 770, 771
\Glsentrylongpl  772, 773
\glsentrylongpl  774, 775
\Glsentryname  776
\glsentryname  777, 778
\glsentrynumberlist  779, 780
\Glsentryplural  781
\glsentryplural  782
\Glsentryprefix  783
\glsentryprefix  784
\Glsentryprefixfirst  785
\glsentryprefixfirst  786
\Glsentryprefixfirstplural  787
\glsentryprefixfirstplural  788
\Glsentryprefixplural  789
\glsentryprefixplural  790
\Glsentryshort  791
\glsentryshort  792
\Glsentryshortpl  793
\glsentryshortpl  794
\Glsentrysymbol  795
\glsentrysymbol  796, 797
\Glsentrysymbolplural  798
\glsentrysymbolplural  799
\Glsentrytext  800, 801, 802, 803, 804
\glsentrytext  805, 806, 807, 808, 809, 810
\Glsentryuseri  811
\glsentryuseri  812, 813
\Glsentryuserii  814
\glsentryuserii  815
\Glsentryuseriii  816
\glsentryuseriii  817
\Glsentryuseriv  818
\glsentryuseriv  819
\Glsentryuserv  820
\glsentryuserv  821
\Glsentryuservi  822
\glsentryuservi  823
\glsexpandfields  824
\GLSfirst  825
\Glsfirst  826
\glsfirst  827
\GLSfirstplural  828
\Glsfirstplural  829
\glsfirstplural  830
\glsgenacfmt  831, 832, 833, 834, 835, 836
\glsgenentryfmt  837, 838, 839
\glsgetgrouptitle  840
\glsglossarymark  841, 842, 843, 844, 845
\glsgroupheading  846, 847
\glsgroupskip  848, 849, 850
\glshyperlink  851, 852, 853
\glshypernavsep  854
\glsIfListOfAcronyms  855
\glsifplural  856, 857
\glsinlineparentchildseparator  858, 859
\glsinlineseparator  860, 861
\glsinlinesubseparator  862, 863
\glsinsert  864
\glslabel  865
\glslabeltok  866
\glslink  867, 868, 869, 870, 871, 872, 873, 874, 875, 876, 877
\glslink options
    counter  878, 879
    format  880, 881, 882, 883, 884
    hyper  885, 886, 887, 888
    local  889
\glslink*  890
\glslistdottedwidth  891
\glslocalreset  892
\glslocalresetall  893
\glslocalunset  894
\glslocalunsetall  895
\glslongtok  896
\glsmcols  897
\glsmoveentry  898
\GLSname  899
\Glsname  900
\glsname  901
\glsnamefont  902, 903
\glsnavhypertarget  904
\glsnoexpandfields  905
\glsnumberformat  906
\glsnumbersgroupname  907
\glsnumbersgrouptitle  908
\glsnumlistlastsep  909
\glsnumlistsep  910
\glsopenbrace  911
\glspagelistwidth  912, 913, 914, 915, 916, 917, 918, 919
\glspar  920
\GLSpl  921, 922, 923, 924, 925
\Glspl  926, 927, 928, 929, 930, 931, 932
\glspl  933, 934, 935, 936, 937, 938, 939, 940, 941, 942, 943, 944, 945, 946
\GLSplural  947
\Glsplural  948
\glsplural  949
\glspluralsuffix  950, 951, 952, 953
\glspostdescription  954
\glspostinline  955, 956
\glsprestandardsort  957, 958
\glsquote  959
\glsrefentry  960, 961, 962
\glsreset  963, 964
\glsresetall  965
\glsresetentrycounter  966
\glssee  967, 968, 969, 970, 971, 972
\glsseeformat  973, 974, 975
\glsseeitemformat  976
\glsseelastsep  977
\glsseelist  978, 979
\glsseesep  980
\glsSetAlphaCompositor  981
\glsSetCompositor  982
\glssetexpandfield  983
\glssetnoexpandfield  984
\glsSetSuffixF  985
\glsSetSuffixFF  986
\glssetwidest  987
\GlsSetXdyCodePage  988, 989, 990
\GlsSetXdyFirstLetterAfterDigits  991
\GlsSetXdyLanguage  992, 993, 994, 995
\GlsSetXdyLocationClassOrder  996
\GlsSetXdyMinRangeLength  997, 998
\glsshorttok  999
\glssortnumberfmt  1000
\glssubentrycounterlabel  1001
\glssubentryitem  1002, 1003
\GLSsymbol  1004
\Glssymbol  1005
\glssymbol  1006, 1007
\glssymbolsgroupname  1008, 1009
\glstarget  1010, 1011
\GLStext  1012, 1013
\Glstext  1014, 1015
\glstext  1016, 1017, 1018, 1019, 1020, 1021, 1022, 1023, 1024, 1025, 1026, 1027
\glstextformat  1028, 1029, 1030
\glstextup  1031
\glstocfalse  1032
\glstoctrue  1033
\glstreeindent  1034
\glsunset  1035
\glsunsetall  1036, 1037
\GlsUseAcrEntryDispStyle  1038
\GlsUseAcrStyleDefs  1039
\GLSuseri  1040
\Glsuseri  1041
\glsuseri  1042
\GLSuserii  1043
\Glsuserii  1044
\glsuserii  1045
\GLSuseriii  1046
\Glsuseriii  1047
\glsuseriii  1048
\GLSuseriv  1049
\Glsuseriv  1050
\glsuseriv  1051
\GLSuserv  1052
\Glsuserv  1053
\glsuserv  1054
\GLSuservi  1055
\Glsuservi  1056
\glsuservi  1057

H html package  1058
\hyperbf  1059
\hyperbsf  1060
\hyperemph  1061
\hyperit  1062
\hyperlink  1063, 1064, 1065
\hypermd  1066
\hyperpage  1067
hyperref package  1068, 1069, 1070, 1071, 1072, 1073, 1074, 1075, 1076, 1077, 1078, 1079, 1080, 1081, 1082, 1083, 1084
\hyperrm  1085, 1086
\hypersc  1087
\hypersf  1088
\hypersl  1089
\hypertarget  1090
\hypertt  1091
\hyperup  1092

I \ifglossaryexists  1093
\ifglsdescsuppressed  1094
\ifglsentryexists  1095
\ifglshaschildren  1096
\ifglshasdesc  1097
\ifglshaslong  1098, 1099
\ifglshasparent  1100
\ifglshasprefix  1101
\ifglshasprefixfirst  1102
\ifglshasprefixfirstplural  1103
\ifglshasprefixplural  1104
\ifglshasshort  1105, 1106
\ifglshassymbol  1107, 1108
\ifglsucmark  1109
\ifglsused  1110, 1111, 1112, 1113
imakeidx package  1114
\index  1115, 1116, 1117, 1118, 1119
index package  1120
\indexspace  1121, 1122, 1123, 1124, 1125
inputenc package  1126, 1127, 1128, 1129
\inputencodingname  1130
\item  1131, 1132
itemize (environment)  1133

J \jobname  1134, 1135

L \label  1136
latex  1137, 1138
latexmk  1139
link text  1140, 1141, 1142, 1143, 1144, 1145, 1146, 1147, 1148, 1149, 1150
\loadglsentries  1151, 1152, 1153
location list  see number list
\longnewglossaryentry  1155, 1156, 1157, 1158
\longprovideglossaryentry  1159
longtable (environment)  1160, 1161, 1162, 1163, 1164, 1165
longtable package  1166, 1167

M \makefirstuc  1168, 1169
makeglossaries  1170, 1171, 1172, 1173, 1174, 1175, 1176, 1177, 1178, 1179, 1180, 1181, 1182, 1183, 1184, 1185, 1186, 1187, 1188, 1189, 1190, 1191, 1192, 1193, 1194, 1195, 1196, 1197, 1198, 1199, 1200, 1201, 1202, 1203, 1204, 1205, 1206, 1207, 1208, 1209, 1210, 1211, 1212, 1213, 1214, 1215, 1216, 1217, 1218, 1219, 1220, 1221, 1222, 1223, 1224, 1225, 1226, 1227, 1228, 1229, 1230, 1231, 1232, 1233
\makeglossaries  1234, 1235, 1236, 1237, 1238, 1239, 1240, 1241, 1242, 1243, 1244, 1245, 1246, 1247, 1248, 1249, 1250, 1251, 1252, 1253, 1254, 1255
makeglossariesgui  1256, 1257, 1258, 1259, 1260, 1261
makeidx package  1262
makeindex  1263, 1264, 1265, 1266, 1267, 1268, 1269, 1270, 1271, 1272, 1273, 1274, 1275, 1276, 1277, 1278, 1279, 1280, 1281, 1282, 1283, 1284, 1285, 1286, 1287, 1288, 1289, 1290, 1291, 1292, 1293, 1294, 1295, 1296, 1297, 1298, 1299, 1300, 1301, 1302, 1303, 1304, 1305, 1306, 1307, 1308, 1309, 1310, 1311, 1312, 1313, 1314, 1315, 1316, 1317, 1318, 1319, 1320, 1321, 1322, 1323, 1324, 1325, 1326, 1327, 1328, 1329, 1330, 1331, 1332, 1333, 1334, 1335
\MakeTextUppercase  1336
\markboth  1337
memoir class  1338, 1339, 1340, 1341
\memUChead  1342
mfirstuc package  1343, 1344
\mfirstucMakeUppercase  1345
multicol package  1346
multicols (environment)  1347, 1348

N nameref package  1349
\newacronym  1350, 1351, 1352, 1353, 1354, 1355, 1356, 1357, 1358, 1359, 1360, 1361, 1362, 1363, 1364, 1365, 1366, 1367, 1368, 1369, 1370, 1371, 1372, 1373, 1374, 1375, 1376, 1377
\newacronymstyle  1378, 1379, 1380
\newdualentry  1381
\newglossary  1382, 1383, 1384, 1385, 1386, 1387
\newglossaryentry  1388, 1389, 1390, 1391, 1392, 1393, 1394, 1395, 1396, 1397, 1398, 1399, 1400, 1401, 1402, 1403, 1404, 1405, 1406, 1407
\newglossaryentry options
    access  1408
    description  1409, 1410, 1411, 1412, 1413, 1414, 1415, 1416, 1417, 1418, 1419, 1420, 1421, 1422
    descriptionaccess  1423
    descriptionplural  1424, 1425, 1426, 1427
    descriptionpluralaccess  1428
    first  1429, 1430, 1431, 1432, 1433, 1434, 1435, 1436, 1437, 1438, 1439, 1440, 1441, 1442, 1443, 1444, 1445, 1446, 1447, 1448
    firstaccess  1449
    firstplural  1450, 1451, 1452, 1453, 1454, 1455, 1456, 1457, 1458, 1459, 1460, 1461, 1462, 1463, 1464, 1465, 1466
    firstpluralaccess  1467
    format  1468
    long  1469, 1470, 1471, 1472, 1473, 1474
    longaccess  1475
    longplural  1476, 1477, 1478, 1479, 1480, 1481, 1482
    longpluralaccess  1483
    name  1484, 1485, 1486, 1487, 1488, 1489, 1490, 1491, 1492, 1493, 1494, 1495, 1496, 1497, 1498, 1499, 1500, 1501, 1502, 1503, 1504, 1505, 1506, 1507, 1508
    nonumberlist  1509
    parent  1510, 1511, 1512, 1513
    plural  1514, 1515, 1516, 1517, 1518, 1519, 1520, 1521, 1522, 1523, 1524, 1525, 1526, 1527
    pluralaccess  1528
    prefix  1529, 1530, 1531, 1532, 1533, 1534, 1535
    prefixfirst  1536, 1537, 1538, 1539, 1540
    prefixfirstplural  1541, 1542, 1543, 1544, 1545
    prefixplural  1546, 1547, 1548, 1549, 1550, 1551
    see  1552, 1553, 1554, 1555, 1556, 1557, 1558, 1559, 1560, 1561, 1562, 1563, 1564, 1565
    short  1566, 1567, 1568, 1569, 1570, 1571
    shortaccess  1572
    shortplural  1573, 1574, 1575, 1576, 1577, 1578, 1579
    shortpluralaccess  1580
    sort  1581, 1582, 1583, 1584, 1585, 1586, 1587, 1588, 1589, 1590, 1591, 1592, 1593, 1594, 1595, 1596, 1597, 1598, 1599, 1600, 1601, 1602, 1603
    symbol  1604, 1605, 1606, 1607, 1608, 1609, 1610, 1611, 1612
    symbolaccess  1613
    symbolplural  1614, 1615, 1616
    symbolpluralaccess  1617
    text  1618, 1619, 1620, 1621, 1622, 1623, 1624, 1625, 1626, 1627, 1628, 1629, 1630, 1631, 1632
    textaccess  1633
    type  1634, 1635, 1636
    user1  1637, 1638, 1639, 1640, 1641
    user2  1642, 1643, 1644
    user3  1645, 1646
    user4  1647, 1648
    user5  1649, 1650
    user6  1651, 1652, 1653
\newglossarystyle  1654, 1655, 1656, 1657
\newline  1658, 1659
\newterm  1660
ngerman package  1661, 1662
\nohyperpage  1663
\noist  1664, 1665, 1666, 1667, 1668, 1669, 1670, 1671, 1672, 1673, 1674, 1675
\nopostdesc  1676, 1677, 1678, 1679, 1680, 1681
number list  1682, 1683, 1684, 1685, 1686, 1687, 1688, 1689, 1690, 1691, 1692, 1693, 1694, 1695, 1696, 1697, 1698, 1699, 1700, 1701, 1702, 1703, 1704, 1705, 1706, 1707, 1708, 1709, 1710, 1711, 1712, 1713, 1714, 1715, 1716, 1717, 1718, 1719, 1720, 1721, 1722, 1723, 1724, 1725, 1726
\numberline  1727

O \oldacronym  1728, 1729

P package options:
    acronym  1730, 1731, 1732, 1733, 1734, 1735, 1736, 1737, 1738, 1739, 1740, 1741, 1742, 1743, 1744, 1745, 1746, 1747, 1748, 1749, 1750, 1751, 1752, 1753
        true  1754, 1755
    acronymlists  1756, 1757, 1758, 1759, 1760, 1761
    acronyms  1762, 1763
    compatible-2.07  1764, 1765, 1766
    compatible-3.07  1767, 1768, 1769
    counter  1770, 1771, 1772, 1773, 1774
        page  1775
    counterwithin  1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1780
    description  1781, 1782, 1783, 1784, 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789
    dua  1790, 1791
    entrycounter  1792, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796
        false  1797
        true  1798
    footnote  1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803, 1804
    hyperfirst  1805, 1806, 1807
        false  1808, 1809, 1810, 1811, 1812
        true  1813
    index  1814, 1815, 1816, 1817
    makeindex  1818, 1819, 1820
    nogroupskip  1821, 1822, 1823, 1824, 1825
        false  1826
    nohypertypes  1827, 1828, 1829, 1830, 1831, 1832, 1833
        index  1834
    nolist  1835, 1836, 1837
    nolong  1838, 1839, 1840, 1841
    nomain  1842, 1843, 1844, 1845, 1846, 1847, 1848, 1849, 1850
    nonumberlist  1851, 1852, 1853, 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858
    nopostdot  1859, 1860
        false  1861
    nostyles  1862, 1863, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868
    nosuper  1869, 1870, 1871, 1872
    notranslate  1873, 1874
    notree  1875, 1876, 1877
    nowarn  1878, 1879
    numberedsection  1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884
        autolabel  1885, 1886
        false  1887
        nameref  1888
        nolabel  1889
    numberline  1890, 1891
    numbers  1892, 1893, 1894
    order  1895, 1896
        letter  1897, 1898, 1899
        word  1900, 1901, 1902
    sanitizesort  1903, 1904
        false  1905, 1906
        true  1907
    savenumberlist  1908, 1909
        false  1910
    savewrites  1911, 1912, 1913
        false  1914
    section  1915, 1916
    seeautonumberlist  1917, 1918, 1919, 1920
    shortcuts  1921, 1922, 1923
    smallcaps  1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931
    smaller  1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938
    sort  1939, 1940, 1941
        def  1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948
        standard  1949, 1950, 1951
        use  1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958
    style  1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965
        list  1966
    subentrycounter  1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972
        false  1973
    symbols  1974, 1975, 1976
    toc  1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981
    translate  1982, 1983, 1984, 1985
        babel  1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991
        false  1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996
        true  1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
    ucfirst  2001
    ucmark  2002, 2003
        false  2004
        true  2005
    xindy  2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
    xindygloss  2019, 2020
    xindynoglsnumbers  2021, 2022
page (counter)  2023
\pagelistname  2024
pdflatex  2025, 2026
\PGLS  2027
\Pgls  2028
\pgls  2029
\PGLSpl  2030
\Pglspl  2031
\pglspl  2032
pod2man  2033
polyglossia package  2034, 2035, 2036, 2037, 2038
\printacronyms  2039, 2040
\printglossaries  2041, 2042, 2043, 2044, 2045, 2046, 2047
\printglossary  2048, 2049, 2050, 2051, 2052, 2053, 2054, 2055, 2056, 2057, 2058, 2059, 2060, 2061, 2062
\printglossary options
    nonumberlist  2063
    numberedsection  2064
    style  2065, 2066, 2067, 2068
    title  2069, 2070
    toctitle  2071
    type  2072
\printindex  2073
\printnumbers  2074
\printsymbols  2075
\provideglossaryentry  2076, 2077

R relsize package  2078, 2079
\Roman  2080

S sanitize  2081, 2082, 2083, 2084
scrwfile package  2085
\section*  2086, 2087
\seename  2088, 2089, 2090, 2091
\SetAcronymLists  2092
\setacronymstyle  2093, 2094, 2095, 2096
\setAlphaCompositor  2097
\setCompositor  2098
\setentrycounter  2099, 2100
\setglossarypreamble  2101, 2102
\setglossarysection  2103, 2104
\setglossarystyle  2105, 2106, 2107, 2108, 2109, 2110, 2111
\setStyleFile  2112, 2113, 2114
\setupglossaries  2115
\subglossentry  2116
supertabular (environment)  2117, 2118, 2119, 2120, 2121
supertabular package  2122, 2123, 2124
\symbolname  2125

T TeX4HT  2126
\textbf  2127
textcase package  2128, 2129
\textrm  2130
\textsc  2131, 2132, 2133, 2134, 2135, 2136, 2137
\textsmaller  2138, 2139, 2140, 2141
\textulc  2142
\textup  2143
\the  2144
theglossary (environment)  2145, 2146, 2147, 2148
\thepage  2149
translator package  2150, 2151, 2152, 2153, 2154, 2155, 2156, 2157, 2158, 2159, 2160, 2161, 2162, 2163, 2164

W \write18  2165

X xindy  2166, 2167, 2168, 2169, 2170, 2171, 2172, 2173, 2174, 2175, 2176, 2177, 2178, 2179, 2180, 2181, 2182, 2183, 2184, 2185, 2186, 2187, 2188, 2189, 2190, 2191, 2192, 2193, 2194, 2195, 2196, 2197, 2198, 2199, 2200, 2201, 2202, 2203, 2204, 2205, 2206, 2207, 2208, 2209, 2210, 2211, 2212, 2213, 2214, 2215, 2216, 2217, 2218, 2219, 2220, 2221, 2222, 2223, 2224, 2225, 2226, 2227, 2228, 2229, 2230, 2231, 2232, 2233, 2234, 2235, 2236, 2237, 2238, 2239, 2240, 2241, 2242, 2243, 2244, 2245, 2246, 2247, 2248, 2249, 2250, 2251, 2252, 2253, 2254, 2255, 2256, 2257, 2258, 2259, 2260, 2261, 2262, 2263, 2264, 2265, 2266, 2267, 2268, 2269, 2270, 2271, 2272, 2273, 2274, 2275, 2276, 2277
xkeyval package  2278, 2279
\xmakefirstuc  2280
\xspace  2281
xspace package  2282, 2283, 2284, 2285, 2286, 2287, 2288

1.1That is, if the term has been referenced using any of the commands described in §6 Links to Glossary Entries and §7 Adding an Entry to the Glossary Without Generating Text or via \glssee (or the see key) or commands such as \acrshort.

1.2Note that although I’ve written latex in this section, it’s better to use pdflatex, where possible, for the reasons given earlier.

1.3As from v3.01 \gls is no longer fragile and doesn’t need protecting.

1.4Apparently MiKTeX has an alternative makeglossaries.exe but I don’t know how using this differs from using makeglossaries.bat.

2.1unless memoir is loaded, which case it uses \markboth

2.2Actually it uses \mfirstucMakeUppercase which is set to textcase’s \MakeTextUppercase by the glossaries package. This makes it consistent with \makefirstuc. (The textcase package is automatically loaded by glossaries.)

2.3Actually it sets \acronymtype to \glsdefaulttype if the acronym package option is not used, but \glsdefaulttype usually has the value main unless the nomain option has been used.

4.1The only preamble restriction on \newglossaryentry and \newacronym was removed in version 1.13, but the restriction remains for \loadglsentries. 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.

4.2Except possibly the style file but then you’ll need to use \noist to prevent your changes from being overwritten.

4.3This is because \acronymtype is set to \glsdefaulttype if the acronym package option is not used.

6.1\glsdisplayfirst and \glsdisplay are now deprecated. Backwards compatibility should be preserved but you may need to use the compatible-3.07 option

8.1makeindex will always assign a location number, even if it’s not needed, so it needs to be discarded.

8.2Ifyou redefine \glsseeformat, keep the default value of the optional argument as \seename as both see and \glssee explicitly write [\seename] in the output file if no optional argument is given.

8.3In versions before 3.0, \glsentryname was used, but this could cause problems when the name key was sanitized.

9.1versions before 3.0 used \glsentryname as the default, but this could cause problems when name had been sanitized.

10.1you can’t use the longheaderborder style for this example as you can’t use the longtable environment in two column mode.

11.1see \setCompositor described in §3 Setting Up

11.2see \setAlphaCompositor described in §3 Setting Up

13.1as from version 1.18

13.2See David Carlisle’sexplanation in http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/86565/drawbacks-_of-_xspace

15.1These lengths will not be available if you use both the nolong and nosuper package options or if you use the nostyles package option unless you explicitly load the relevant package.

15.2This style was supplied by Axel Menzel.

15.3e.g. with the flowfram package.

17.1Single letter words, such as “a” and “I” should typically not appear at the end of a line, hence the non-breakable space after “a” in the prefix field.

17.2The earlier caveats about initial non-Latin characters apply.