Nicola L.C. Talbot
School of Computing Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich. Norfolk
NR4 7TJ. United Kingdom.
http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~nlct/
6th Feb 2010
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 in the document will be added to the glossary.
This package replaces the glossary package which is now obsolete. Please see 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 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 called makeindex or xindy explicitly. See Generating the Associated Glossary Files for further details.
This manual is structured as follows:
The remainder of this introductory section covers the following:
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 glossariesThis should display the full pathname of the file glossaries.pdf. View the contents of that directory and see if it contains the samples subdirectory.
If you can't find the sample files, they are available in the subdirectory doc/latex/glossaries/samples/ in the glossaries.tds.zip archive which can be downloaded from CTAN.
The sample documents are as follows:
latex minimalglsin 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. 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.
makeglossaries minimalglsor by typing
perl makeglossaries minimalglsIf 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 later 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.
latex sample4col makeglossaries sample4col latex sample4colAs 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 by redefining \glsgroupskip after the glossary style has been set:
\renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{}
latex sampleAcr makeglossaries sampleAcr latex sampleAcr latex sampleAcr
latex sampleAcrDesc makeglossaries sampleAcrDesc latex sampleAcrDesc latex sampleAcrDesc
latex sampleDesc makeglossaries sampleDesc latex sampleDesc latex sampleDesc
latex sampleDB makeglossaries sampleDB latex sampleDBThe 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:
makeindex -s sampleDB.ist -t sampleDB.glg -o sampleDB.gls sampleDB.glo
makeindex -s sampleDB.ist -t sampleDB.nlg -o sampleDB.not sampleDB.ntn
latex sampleEq makeglossaries sampleEq latex sampleEq
latex sampleEqPg makeglossaries sampleEqPg latex sampleEqPg latex sampleEqPg
latex sampleSec makeglossaries sampleSec latex sampleSec latex sampleSec
latex sampleNtn makeglossaries sampleNtn latex sampleNtn latex sampleNtnNote that if you don't have Perl installed, you will need to use makeindex twice instead of a single call to makeglossaries:
makeindex -s sampleNtn.ist -t sampleNtn.glg -o sampleNtn.gls sampleNtn.glo
makeindex -s sampleNtn.ist -t sampleNtn.nlg -o sampleNtn.not sampleNtn.ntn
latex sample makeglossaries sample latex sample latex sampleYou 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.)
latex sampletree makeglossaries sampletree latex sampletree
\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 samplexdyIf 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.glootherwise, 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
latex sampleutf8 makeglossaries sampleutf8 latex sampleutf8If 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 sampleutf8you 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
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}
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 uppercase (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.
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. 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 following languages are currently supported by the glossaries package:
| 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 |
| Spanish | 1.08 |
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 do not have the translator package installed, you need to be familiar with the advice on changing the words babel uses. If you have the translator package installed, 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. See the translator documentation for further details.
If you are using babel and don't want to use the translator interface, you can suppress it using the package option translate=false, and either load glossaries-babel after glossaries or specify you're own translations. For example:
\documentclass[british]{article}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage[translate=false]{glossaries}
\usepackage{glossaries-babel}
or:
\documentclass[british]{article}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage[translate=false]{glossaries}
\addto\captionsbritish{%
\renewcommand*{\glossaryname}{List of Terms}%
\renewcommand*{\acronymname}{List of Acronyms}%
\renewcommand*{\entryname}{Notation}%
\renewcommand*{\descriptionname}{Description}%
\renewcommand*{\symbolname}{Symbol}%
\renewcommand*{\pagelistname}{Page List}%
\renewcommand*{\glssymbolsgroupname}{Symbols}%
\renewcommand*{\glsnumbersgroupname}{Numbers}%
}
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 accented characters or non-Roman letters. See Xindy for further details.
In order to generate a sorted glossary with compact location 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 later.
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 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. However, whilst it is strongly recommended that you use the makeglossaries script, it is possible to use the glossaries package without having Perl installed. In which case, if you have used the xindy package option, you will need to use xindy (see Using xindy explicitly), otherwise you will need to use makeindex (see Using makeindex explicitly). Note that some commands and package options have no effect if you don't use makeglossaries. These are listed in table 2.
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:
\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. See your editor's user manual for further details.
If any problems occur, remember to check the transcript files (e.g. .glg or .alg) for messages.
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 myDocYou may need to explicitly load makeglossaries into Perl:
perl makeglossaries myDocThere 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.
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.
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
makeglossaries. This causes the glossary
entries to be written in raw xindy format, so you need to
use -I xindy not -I tex.
To run xindy type the following in your terminal
(all on one line):
xindy -L language -C encoding -I xindy
-M style -t base.glg
-o base.gls base.glo
where language is the required language name, encoding
is the encoding, base is the name of the document without the
.tex extension and style is the name of the
xindy style file without the .xdy extension.
The default name for this style file is base.xdy
but can be changed via \setStyleFile{style}. You may need
to specify the full path name depending on the current working
directory. If any of the file names contain spaces, you must delimit
them using double-quotes.
For example, if your document is called myDoc.tex and you are using UTF8 encoding in English, then type the following in your terminal:
xindy -L english -C utf8 -I xindy -M myDoc -t myDoc.glg -o myDoc.gls myDoc.glo
Note that this just creates the main glossary. You need to do the same for each of the other glossaries (including the list of acronyms if you have used the acronym package option), substituting .glg, .gls and .glo with the relevant extensions. For example, if you have used the acronym package option, then you would need to do:
xindy -L english -C utf8 -I xindy -M myDoc -t myDoc.alg -o myDoc.acr myDoc.acnFor 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 myDocNote also that some commands and package options have no effect if you use xindy explicitly instead of using makeglossaries. These are listed in table 2.
If you want to use makeindex explicitly, you must
make sure that you haven't used the xindy package
option or the glossary entries will be written in the wrong
format. To run makeindex, type the following in
your terminal:
makeindex -s style.ist -t base.glg
-o base.gls base.glo
where base is the name of your document without the
.tex extension and style.ist is the
name of the makeindex style file. By default, this is
base.ist, but may be changed via
\setStyleFile{style}. Note that there are other options,
such as -l (letter ordering). See the makeindex
manual for further details.
For example, if your document is called myDoc.tex, then type the following at the terminal:
makeindex -s myDoc.ist -t myDoc.glg -o myDoc.gls myDoc.gloNote 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.acnFor 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 myDocNote also that some commands and package options have no effect if you use makeindex explicitly instead of using makeglossaries. These are listed in table 2.
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{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 main glossary is written as:
\@newglossary{main}{glg}{gls}{glo}
The indexing application's style file is specified by
\@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{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{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.
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/2008/texmf-dist/doc/latex/glossaries/. Further information on debugging LaTeX code is available at http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~nlct/latex/minexample/.
Below is a list of the most frequently asked questions. For other queries, consult the glossaries FAQ at http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~nlct/latex/packages/faq/glossariesfaq.html.
Missing \begin{document}
A. Check you are using an up to date version of the xkeyval package.
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.
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.
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}}
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}
A. Although it is strongly recommended that you use makeglossaries, you don't have to use it. For further details, read Using xindy explicitly or Using makeindex explicitly, depending on whether you want to use xindy or makeindex.
A. Read Upgrading from the glossary package to the glossaries package which should be available from the same location as this document.
A. The glossaries package currently only supports the following languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Irish, Italian, Hungarian, Polish 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 adding the translator package with the required languages explicitly (before you load the glossaries package). For example:
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage[ngerman]{translator}
\usepackage{glossaries}
Alternatively, you can add the language as a global option
to the class file. Check the translator package documentation
for further details.
A. Switch off the sanitization:
\usepackage[sanitize=none]{glossaries}
and protect fragile commands.
A. Remember to do the following:
Check the log files (.log, .glg etc) for any warnings.
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.
The glossaries package options are as follows:
{} 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.
\newglossary[alg]{acronym}{acr}{acn}{\acronymname}
If the acronym package option is used, \acronymtype
is set to acronym otherwise it is set to
main.3
Entries that are defined using \newacronym are placed in
the glossary whose label is given by \acronymtype, unless
another glossary is explicitly specified.
\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}
\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{name}
where name is the sectional unit.
The start of each glossary adds information to the page header via
\glossarymark{glossary title}
This defaults to \@mkboth, but you may need to redefine it. For example, to only change the right header:
\renewcommand{\glossarymark}[1]{\markright{#1}}
or to prevent it from changing the headers:
\renewcommand{\glossarymark}[1]{}
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:
\renewcommand*{\glsclearpage}{\clearpage}
\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}.
As from version 1.14, you can add a prefix to the label by redefining
\glsautoprefix
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}.
\usepackage[sanitize={name=false,description=false,%
symbol=true}]{glossaries}
You can use sanitize=none as a shortcut for
Note: this sanitization only applies to the name, description and symbol keys. It doesn't apply to any of the other keys (except the sort key which is always sanitized) so fragile commands contained in the value of the other keys must always be protected using \protect. Since the value of the text key is obtained from the name key, you will still need to protect fragile commands in the name key if you don't use the text key.
The xindy 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}
See Xindy
for further details on using xindy with the
glossaries package.
All glossary entries must be defined before they are used, so it is better to define them in the preamble to ensure this.5 However only those entries that occur in the document (using any of the commands described in Links to Glossary Entries, Adding an entry to the glossary without generating text or 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. See Generating the Associated Glossary Files for further details.
The command \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.
You can suppress the creation of the customised xindy or makeindex style file using \noist. Note that this command must be used before \makeglossaries.
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{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{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 uppercase alphabetical character using:
\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 Number
lists for
further information about number lists.
New glossary entries are defined using the command:
\newglossaryentry{label}{key-val list}
The first argument, label, must be a unique label with which to identify this entry. The second argument, key-val list, is a key=value list that supplies the relevant information about this entry. There are two required fields: name and description, except for sub-entries where the name field may be omitted. Available fields are listed below:
description={\nopostdesc}. If you want a paragraph
break in the description use \glspar.
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.
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.
see=[see also]{anotherlabel}. For further details,
see later.
\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.
\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\glsuseriThen you don't have to remember which key you used to store the alternative plural.
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).
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 later for a list of predefined styles.
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.
\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={pi},
description={ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter},
parent=greekletter}
\newglossaryentry{C}{name=C,
description={Euler's constant},
parent=romanletter}
\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={1) list of technical words},
sort={1},
parent={glossary}}
\newglossaryentry{glossarycol}{
description={2) 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.
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={1) cry of approval (pl.\ bravos)},
sort={1},
plural={bravos},
parent=bravo}
\newglossaryentry{bravoruffian}{description={2) hired ruffian or
killer (pl.\ bravoes)},
sort={2},
plural={bravoes},
parent=bravo}
You can store all your glossary entry definitions in another file and use:
\loadglsentries[type]{filename}
where filename is the name of the file containing all the \newglossaryentry 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). For example, 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 later)
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.6 In this instance,
it is better to change myacronyms.tex to:
\newacronym[type=\glsdefaulttype]{aca}{aca}{a contrived acronym}
and now
\loadglsentries[altacronym]{myacronyms}
will add aca to the glossary type altacronym,
regardless of whether or not the package option acronym is
used.
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.
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 Links to Glossary Entries and 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{suffix}
\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.
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 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.
The above warning is particularly important if you are using the glossaries package in conjunction with the hyperref package. Instead, use one of the commands listed in Using Glossary Terms Without Links (such as \glsentrytext) or provide an alternative via the optional argument to the sectioning/caption command. Examples:
\section{An overview of \glsentrytext{perl}}
\section[An overview of Perl]{An overview of \gls{perl}}
The way the link text is displayed depends on
\glstextformat{text}
For example, to make all link text appear in a sans-serif font, do:
\renewcommand*{\glstextformat}[1]{\textsf{#1}}
Each entry has an associated conditional referred to as the first use flag. This determines whether \gls, \glspl (and their uppercase variants) should use the value of the first or text keys. Note that an entry can be used without affecting the first use flag (for example, when used with \glslink). See later for commands that unset or reset this conditional.
The command:
\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:
( 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 3.
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}
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 later).
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 3.
Note that if the \hyperlink command hasn't been defined, the hyperxx formats are equivalent to the analogous textxx 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.
Remember that if you use xindy, you will need to add
this to the list of location attributes:
\GlsAddXdyAttribute{hyperbsf}
\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.
The command:
\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 uppercase variants:
\Gls[options]{label}[insert]
and
\GLS[options]{label}[insert]
which make the first letter of the link text or all the link text uppercase, 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 later).
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.
There are also analogous plural forms:
\glspl[options]{label}[insert]
\Glspl[options]{label}[insert]
\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.
Note that \glslink doesn't use or affect the first use flag, nor does it use \glsdisplay or \glsdisplayfirst (see later). Instead, you can use:
\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 \glsdisplay or \glsdisplayfirst.
The command:
\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 \glsdisplay or \glsdisplayfirst. (The same is true for all the following commands described in this section.)
There are also analogous commands:
\Glstext[options]{text}[insert]
\GLStext[options]{text}[insert]
As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.
The command:
\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[options]{text}[insert]
\GLSfirst[options]{text}[insert]
As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.
The command:
\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[options]{text}[insert]
\GLSplural[options]{text}[insert]
As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.
The command:
\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[options]{text}[insert]
\GLSfirstplural[options]{text}[insert]
As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.
The command:
\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. Note: if you want to use this command and the name key contains commands, you will have to disable the sanitization of the name key and protect fragile commands.
There are also analogous commands:
\Glsname[options]{text}[insert]
\GLSname[options]{text}[insert]
As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.
The command:
\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. Note: if you want to use this command and the symbol key contains commands, you will have to disable the sanitization of the symbol key and protect fragile commands.
There are also analogous commands:
\Glssymbol[options]{text}[insert]
\GLSsymbol[options]{text}[insert]
As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.
The command:
\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. Note: if you want to use this command and the description key contains commands, you will have to disable the sanitization of the description key and protect fragile commands.
There are also analogous commands:
\Glsdesc[options]{text}[insert]
\GLSdesc[options]{text}[insert]
As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink.
The command:
\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[options]{text}[insert]
\GLSuseri[options]{text}[insert]
As before, these commands also have a starred version that disable the hyperlink. Similarly for the other user keys:
\glsuserii[options]{text}[insert]
\Glsuserii[options]{text}[insert]
\GLSuserii[options]{text}[insert]
\glsuseriii[options]{text}[insert]
\Glsuseriii[options]{text}[insert]
\GLSuseriii[options]{text}[insert]
\glsuseriv[options]{text}[insert]
\Glsuseriv[options]{text}[insert]
\GLSuseriv[options]{text}[insert]
\glsuserv[options]{text}[insert]
\Glsuserv[options]{text}[insert]
\GLSuserv[options]{text}[insert]
\glsuservi[options]{text}[insert]
\Glsuservi[options]{text}[insert]
\GLSuservi[options]{text}[insert]
The format of the link text for \gls, \glspl and their uppercase variants is governed by two commands:
\glsdisplayfirst
which is used the first time a glossary entry is used in the text and
\glsdisplay
which is used subsequently. Both commands take four arguments: the first is either the singular or plural form given by the text, plural, first or firstplural keys (set when the term was defined) depending on context; the second argument is the term's description (as supplied by the description or descriptionplural keys); the third argument is the symbol associated with the term (as supplied by the symbol or symbolplural keys) and the fourth argument is the additional text supplied in the final optional argument to \gls or \glspl (or their uppercase variants). The default definitions of \glsdisplay and \glsdisplayfirst simply print the first argument immediately followed by the fourth argument. The remaining arguments are ignored.
If required, you can access the label for the given entry via \glslabel, so it is possible to use this label in the definition of \glsdisplay or \glsdisplayfirst to supply additional information using any of the commands described in Using Glossary Terms Without Links, if required.
Note that \glsdisplay and \glsdisplayfirst are not used by \glslink. If you want to supply your own link text, you need to use \glsdisp instead.
For example, 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
\glsdisplayfirst as follows:
\renewcommand{\glsdisplayfirst}[4]{#1#4 (#3)}
Note that the additional text is placed after #1, so
\gls{distance}['s] will produce "distance's (km)"
rather than "distance (km)'s" which looks a bit odd (even though
it may be in the context of "the distance (km) is measured between
the two points" -- but in this instance it would be better not to
use a contraction).
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{\glsdisplayfirst}[4]{#1#4 (#3)}
then \gls{distance} will produce "distance (km)".
If you have multiple glossaries, changing \glsdisplayfirst and \glsdisplay will change the way entries for all of the glossaries appear when using the commands \gls, \glspl, their uppercase variants and \glsdisp. If you only want the change to affect entries for a given glossary, then you need to use
\defglsdisplay[type]{definition}
and
\defglsdisplayfirst[type]{definition}
instead of redefining \glsdisplay and \glsdisplayfirst.
Both \defglsdisplay and \defglsdisplayfirst take two arguments: the first (which is optional) is the glossary's label7 and the second is how the term should be displayed when it is invoked using commands \gls, \glspl, their uppercase variants and \glsdisp. This is similar to the way \glsdisplayfirst was redefined above.
For example, 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:
\defglsdisplayfirst[notation]{#1#4 (denoted #3)}
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 using \gls it
will be displayed as: "set (denoted S)"
(similarly for \glspl and the uppercase variants).
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. In addition, if you want either the description or symbol to appear in the link text, you will have to disable the sanitization of these keys and protect fragile commands.
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
and
\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.
It is possible to add a line in the glossary file without generating any text at that point in the document using:
\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[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}]
There are several ways of cross-referencing entries in the glossary:
\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 glossary, you will need two runs of
makeglossaries:
latex filename makeglossaries filename latex filename makeglossaries filename latex filename
\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
Links to Glossary Entries or
Adding an Entry to the Glossary
Without Generating Text.
You can optionally override the "see" tag using square brackets at the start of the see value. For example:
\newglossaryentry{MaclaurinSeries}{name={Maclaurin series},
description={Series expansion},
see=[see also]{TaylorsTheorem}}
\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. 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. In cases 2 and 3, the default text for the "see" tag is given by \seename.
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.
\glsentryname{label}
\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 uppercase.
\glsentrytext{label}
\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 uppercase.
\glsentryplural{label}
\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 uppercase.
\glsentryfirst{label}
\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 uppercase.
\glsentryfirstplural{label}
\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 uppercase.
\glsentrydesc{label}
\Glsentrydesc{label}
These commands display the description for the glossary entry given by label. \Glsentrydesc makes the first letter uppercase.
\glsentrydescplural{label}
\Glsentrydescplural{label}
These commands display the plural description for the glossary entry given by label. \Glsentrydescplural makes the first letter uppercase.
\glsentrysymbol{label}
\Glsentrysymbol{label}
These commands display the symbol for the glossary entry given by label. \Glsentrysymbol makes the first letter uppercase.
\glsentrysymbolplural{label}
\Glsentrysymbolplural{label}
These commands display the plural symbol for the glossary entry given by label. \Glsentrysymbolplural makes the first letter uppercase.
\glsentryuseri{label}
\Glsentryuseri{label}
\glsentryuserii{label}
\Glsentryuserii{label}
\glsentryuseriii{label}
\Glsentryuseriii{label}
\glsentryuseriv{label}
\Glsentryuseriv{label}
\glsentryuserv{label}
\Glsentryuserv{label}
\glsentryuservi{label}
\Glsentryuservi{label}
These commands display the value of the user keys for the glossary entry given by label.
\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 \glsentryname{label} by default, 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 Links to Glossary Entries or Adding an Entry to the Glossary Without Generating Text otherwise you will end up with a broken link.
For further information see the section "Displaying entry details without adding information to the glossary" in the document glossaries.pdf.
The command \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 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[options]
where options is a key=value list of options. The following keys are available:
\printglossary[type=\acronymtype]
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.
Information can be added to the start of the glossary (after the title and before the main body of the glossary) by redefining \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. Note that if you
want a different preamble for each glossary, you will need to
use a separate \printglossary for each glossary and change
the definition of \glossarypreamble between each glossary.
For example:
\renewcommand{\glossarypreamble}{Numbers in italic indicate
primary definitions.}
\printglossary
\renewcommand{\glossarypreamble}{}
\printglossary[type=acronym]
Alternatively, you can do something like:
\renewcommand{\glossarypreamble}{Numbers in italic indicate
primary definitions.\gdef\glossarypreamble{}}
\printglossaries
which will print the preamble text for the first glossary and
change the preamble to do nothing for subsequent glossaries.
(Note that \gdef is required as the glossary is placed within
a group.)
There is an analogous command called \glossarypostamble which is placed at the end of each glossary.
Within each glossary, each entry name is formatted according to \glsnamefont 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.
For example, suppose you want all the entry names to appear in medium weight small caps, then you can do:
\renewcommand{\glsnamefont}[1]{\textsc{\mdseries #1}}
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.
The section 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
\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{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.
\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{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.
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{name}
where name is the name of the attribute, as used in the format key. For example, 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}
Note that \GlsAddXdyAttribute has no effect if \noist is used or if \makeglossaries is omitted.
\GlsAddXdyAttribute must be used before \makeglossaries.
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.
For example, suppose you want the page numbers written as words rather than digits and you use the fmtcount package to do this. You 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 you 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 has no effect if \noist is used or if \makeglossaries is omitted.
\GlsAddXdyLocation must be used before \makeglossaries.
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 hyphen8), 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 hyphen9), 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{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{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 Number Lists for further details.
\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{letter}
Note that \GlsSetXdyFirstLetterAfterDigits has no effect if \noist is used or if \makeglossaries is omitted.
\GlsSetXdyFirstLetterAfterDigits must be used before \makeglossaries.
A new glossary can be defined using:
\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 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).
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 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.
All glossaries must be defined before \makeglossaries to ensure that the relevant output files are opened.
You may have noticed in 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[key-val list]{label}{abbrv}{long}
By default, this is equivalent to:
\newglossaryentry {label}{type=\acronymtype,
name= {abbrv},
description= {long},
text= {abbrv},
first={ long ( abbrv)},
plural={ abbrv\glspluralsuffix},
firstplural={ long\glspluralsuffix\space
( abbrv\glspluralsuffix)},
key-val list}
As mentioned in the previous section, the command \acronymtype is the name of the glossary in which the acronyms should appear. If the acronym package option has been used, this will be acronym, otherwise it will be main. The acronyms can then be used in exactly the same way as any other glossary entry. If you want more than one list of acronyms, you must identify the others using the package options acronymlists. This ensures that options such as footnote and smallcaps work for the additional lists of acronyms.
Note: 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 earlier for details.
For example, the following defines the acronym IDN:
\newacronym{idn}{IDN}{identification number}
This is equivalent to:
\newglossaryentry{idn}{type=\acronymtype,
name={IDN},
description={identification number},
text={IDN},
first={identification number (IDN)},
plural={IDNs},
firstplural={identification numbers (IDNs)}}
so \gls{idn} will produce "identification number (IDN)" on
first use and "IDN" on subsequent uses.
This section describes acronyms that have been defined using \newacronym. If you prefer to define all your acronyms using \newglossaryentry explicitly, then you should skip this section and ignore the package options: smallcaps, smaller, description, dua and footnote, as these options change the definition of \newacronym for common acronym formats as well as the way that the link text is displayed (see earlier). Likewise you should ignore the package option shortcuts and the new commands described in this section, such as \acrshort, as they vary according to the definition of \newacronym.
If you use any of the package options smallcaps, smaller, description or footnote, the acronyms will be displayed in the document using:
\acronymfont{text}
and
\firstacronymfont{text}
where \firstacronymfont is applied on first use and \acronymfont is applied on subsequent use. Note that if you don't use any of the above package options, changing the definition of \acronymfont or \firstacronymfont will have no effect. In this case, the recommended route is to use either the smaller or the smallcaps package option and redefine \acronymfont and \firstacronymfont as required. (The smallcaps option sets the default plural suffix in an upright font to cancel the effect of \textsc, whereas smaller sets the suffix in the surrounding font.) For example, if you want acronyms in a normal font on first use and emphasized on subsequent use, do:
\usepackage[smaller]{glossaries}
\renewcommand*{\firstacronymfont}[1]{#1}
\renewcommand*{\acronymfont}[1]{\emph{#1}}
(Note that it is for this reason that the relsize package
is not automatically loaded when selecting the
smaller package option.)
Table 4 lists the package options that govern the acronym styles and how the \newglossaryentry keys are used to store long (the long form) and abbrv (the short form). Note that the smallcaps option redefines \acronymfont so that it sets its argument using \textsc (so you should use lower case characters in abbrv) and the smaller option redefines \acronymfont to use \textsmaller,10 otherwise \acronymfont simply displays its argument in the surrounding font.
In case you can't remember which key stores the long or short forms (or their plurals) the glossaries package provides the commands:
\newacronym[\glslongpluralkey={diagonal matrices}]{dm}{DM}{diagonal
matrix}
If the first use uses the plural form, \glspl{dm} will
display: diagonal matrices (DMs).
Each of the package options smallcaps, smaller, footnote, dua and description use \defglsdisplay and \defglsdisplayfirst (described earlier) to change the way the link text is displayed. This means that these package options only work for the glossary type given by \acronymtype. If you have multiple lists of acronyms, you will need to make the appropriate changes for each additional glossary type.
In this case, the long form is stored in the symbol key. This means that the long form will not be displayed in the list of acronyms unless you use a glossary style that displays the entry's symbol (for example, the index style). Entries will be sorted according to the short form.
Note also that when these two package options are used (in the
given order), the glossaries package additionally implements the
sanitize option using
sanitize={description=false,symbol=false}, so
remember to protect fragile commands when defining acronyms.
sanitize={symbol=false}, so
remember to protect fragile commands when defining acronyms.
Note that with this option, you need to specify the description using the description key in the optional argument of \newacronym. When this option is used without the footnote or dua options, the name field is specified as
\acrnameformat{short}{long}
This defaults to \acronymfont{short}, which means that the long form will not appear in the list of acronyms by default. To change this, you need to redefine \acrnameformat as appropriate. For example, to display the long form followed by the short form in parentheses do:
\renewcommand*{\acrnameformat}[2]{#2 (\acronymfont{#1})}
Note that even if you redefine \acrnameformat, the
entries will be sorted according to the short form, unless you
override this using the sort key in the optional
argument to \newacronym.
Note also that if this package option is used, the glossaries
package additionally implements the option
sanitize={description=false}, so
remember to protect fragile commands when defining acronyms.
Note that on first use, it is the long form in the footnote that links to the relevant glossary entry (where hyperlinks are enabled), whereas on subsequent use, the acronym links to the relevant glossary entry. It is possible to change this to make the acronym on first use have the hyperlink instead of the footnote, but since the footnote marker will also be a hyperlink, you will have two hyperlinks in immediate succession. This can be ambiguous where the hyperlinks are coloured rather than boxed. The code required to change the first use to make the acronym a hyperlink is as follows:
\defglsdisplayfirst[\acronymtype]{%
\noexpand\protect\noexpand
\glslink[\@gls@link@opts]{\@gls@link@label}{\firstacronymfont{#1}#4}%
\noexpand\protect\noexpand\footnote{#2}}%
Note that this involves using internal commands
(i.e. commands whose name contains an @ character), so
if this code is place in a .tex file it needs to be
placed within a \makeatletter ... \makeatother pair.
(See \@ and @ in macro names
for further details.)
\textsc{#1}.
Note that since the acronym is displayed using \textsc, the short form, abbrv, should be specified in lower case.
Note also that if this package option is used, the glossaries
package additionally implements the option
sanitize={symbol=false}, so
remember to protect fragile commands when defining acronyms.
\textsmaller{#1}.11The entries will be sorted according to the short form.
Remember to load a package that defines \textsmaller (such as relsize) if you want to use this option, unless you want to redefine \acronymfont to use some other formatting command.
Note also that if this package option is used, the glossaries
package additionally implements the option
sanitize={symbol=false}, so
remember to protect fragile commands when defining acronyms.
Recall from earlier that you can access the values of individual keys using commands like \glstext, so it is possible to use these commands to print just the long form or just the abbreviation without affecting the flag that determines whether the entry has been used. However the keys that store the long and short form vary depending on the acronym style, so the glossaries package provides commands that are set according to the package options. These are as follows:
\acrshort[options]{label}[insert]
\ACRshort[options]{label}[insert]
\ACRshort[options]{label}[insert]
Print the abbreviated version with (if required) a hyperlink to the relevant entry in the glossary. This is usually equivalent to \glstext (or its uppercase variants) but may additionally put the link text within the argument to \acronymfont.
\acrlong[options]{label}[insert]
\ACRlong[options]{label}[insert]
\ACRlong[options]{label}[insert]
Print the long version with (if required) a hyperlink to the relevant entry in the glossary. This is may be equivalent to \glsdesc, \glssymbol or \glsfirst (or their uppercase variants), depending on package options.
\acrfull[options]{label}[insert]
\ACRfull[options]{label}[insert]
\ACRfull[options]{label}[insert]
Print the long version followed by the abbreviation in brackets with (if required) a hyperlink to the relevant entry in the glossary.
Note that if any of the above commands produce unexpected output and you haven't used any of the acronym-related package options, you will need to switch off the sanitization. For example:
\usepackage[sanitize=none]{glossaries}
However, if you do this, you must remember to protect fragile
commands when defining acronyms or glossary entries.
Note that if you change the definition of \newacronym, you may additionally need to change the above commands as well as changing the way the text is displayed using \defglsdisplay and \defglsdisplayfirst.
The package option shortcuts provides the synonyms listed in table 5. If any of those commands generate an "undefined control sequence" error message, check that you have enabled the shortcuts using the shortcuts package option. Note that there are no shortcuts for the commands that produce all upper case text.
In order to facilitate migrating from the old package to the new one, the glossaries package12 provides the command:
\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.
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 6 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.
| 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 |
When using \gls, \glspl and their uppercase 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{label}
\glslocalreset{label}
while the latter can be achieved by one of the following commands:
\glsunset{label}
\glslocalunset{label}
You can also reset or unset all entries for a given glossary or list of glossaries using:
\glsresetall[glossary list]
\glslocalresetall[glossary list]
\glsunsetall[glossary list]
\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{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.
The glossary style can be set using the style key in the optional argument to \printglossary or using the command:
\glossarystyle{style-name}
Some of the 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.
The tabular-like styles that allow multi-line descriptions and page
lists use the length \glsdescwidth
to set the width of the description column and the length
\glspagelistwidth to set the
width of the page list column.13These 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 you should 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, \glossarystyle will also
override any previous style definitions, so, again
\renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{}
\glossarystyle{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
\glossarystyle, e.g.:
\glossarystyle{long}
\renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{}
All the styles except for the three- and four-column styles and the listdotted style use the command \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.
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.
\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.
\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 governs
where the description should start. This is a flat style, so child
entries are formatted in the same way as the parent entries.
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 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.
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 These styles fully justify the description and page list columns. If you want ragged right formatting instead, use the analogous styles described in 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.
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.
\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.
If the predefined styles don't fit your requirements, you can define your own style using:
\newglossarystyle{name}{definitions}
where name is the name of the new glossary style (to be used in \glossarystyle). The second argument definitions needs to redefine all of the following:
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
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{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{label}
This obtains the title as follows: if \labelgroupname exists, this is taken to be the title, otherwise the title is just label.
A navigation hypertarget can be created using
\glsnavhypertarget{label}{text}
For further details about \glsnavhypertarget, see the documented code of glossary-hypernav in glossaries.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
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.
\glossaryentryfield{label}{formatted name}{description}{symbol} {number list}
This macro indicates what to do for a given glossary entry. Note that formatted name will always be in the form \glsnamefont{name}. This allows the user to set a given font for the entry name, regardless of the glossary style used. Note that label is the label used when the glossary entry was defined via either \newglossaryentry or \newacronym.
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 \glossaryentryfield to set the appropriate target. This is done using
\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 \glossaryentryfield as follows:
\renewcommand*{\glossaryentryfield}[5]{%
\item[\glstarget{##1}{##2}] ##3\glspostdescription\space ##5}
Note also that number list will always be of the form
\glossaryentrynumbers{\relax
\setentrycounter{counter name}\glsnumberformat{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{counter name}\glsnumberformat{number(s)}, but note
that the entire number list is enclosed within the argument
to \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.
\glossarysubentryfield{level}{label}{formatted name}{description}{symbol} {number list}
This is new to version 1.17, and 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 \glossaryentryfield described above.
For further details of these commands, see the documented code in glossaries.pdf.
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*{\glossaryentryfield}[5]{%
\item % bullet point
\glstarget{##1}{##2}% the entry name
\space (##4)% the symbol in brackets
\space ##3% the description
\space [##5]% the number list in square brackets
}%
% set how sub-entries appear:
\renewcommand*{\glossarysubentryfield}[6]{%
\glossaryentryfield{##2}{##3}{##4}{##5}{##6}}%
}
Note that this style creates a flat glossary, where sub-entries
are displayed in exactly the same way as the top level entries.
If you want to define a new style that is a slightly modified version of an existing style, you can use \glossarystyle 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}{%
\glossarystyle{list}% base this style on the list style
\renewcommand{\glsgroupskip}{}% make nothing happen between groups
}
Since \glossaryentryfield and \glossarysubentryfield provide the label for the entry, it's also possible to access the values of the generic user keys, such as user1. For example, 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:
\renewcommand*{\glossaryentryfield}[5]{%
\glstarget{##1}{##2}% Name
& ##3% Description
& ##4% Symbol
& \glsentryuseri{##1}% Units
& \glsentryuserii{##1}% Dimensions
& ##5% Page list
\\% end of row
}%
% Sub entries treated the same as level 0 entries:
\renewcommand*{\glossarysubentryfield}[6]{%
\glossaryentryfield{##2}{##3}{##4}{##5}{##6}}%
% Nothing between groups:
\renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{}%
}
For example:
\newglossaryentry{tex}{name={\TeX},description={Document preparation
language},access={TeX}}
Now \gls{tex} will be equivalent to
\BeginAccSupp{ActualText=TeX}\TeX\EndAccSupp{}
See the section
"glossaries-accsupp code" in
the document glossaries.pdf for further details. It is
recommended that you also read the accsupp documentation.
The glossaries bundle is supplied with the package mfirstuc which provides the command:
\makefirstuc{stuff}
which makes the first object of stuff uppercase unless stuff starts with a control sequence followed by a non-empty group, in which case the first object in the group is converted to uppercase. Examples:
\makefirstuc{abc} produces Abc
\makefirstuc{\emph{abc}} produces Abc
(\MakeUppercase has been applied to the letter "a" rather
than \emph.) Note however that
\makefirstuc{{\em abc}} produces ABC and
{\makefirstuc{\em abc}} produces abc.
\makefirstuc{{\'a}bc} produces Ábc
\makefirstuc{\ae bc} produces Æbc
\makefirstuc{{\ae}bc} produces Æbc
\makefirstuc{{ä}bc} produces Äbc
In version 1.02 of mfirstuc, a bug fix resulted in a change
in output if the first object is a control sequence followed by
an empty group. Prior to version 1.02, \makefirstuc{\ae{}bc}
produced æBc. However as from version 1.02, it now produces
Æbc.
Note also that
\newcommand{\abc}{abc}
\makefirstuc{\abc}
produces: ABC. This is because the first object in the argument of
\makefirstuc is \abc, so it does \MakeUppercase\abc.
Whereas:
\newcommand{\abc}{abc}
\expandafter\makefirstuc\expandafter{\abc}
produces: Abc. There is a short cut command which will do this:
\xmakefirstuc{stuff}
This is equivalent to \expandafter\makefirstuc\expandafter{stuff}. So
\newcommand{\abc}{abc}
\xmakefirstuc{\abc}
produces: Abc.
If you want to use an alternative command to convert to uppercase, for example \MakeTextUppercase,16 you can redefine the internal command \@gls@makefirstuc. For example:
\renewcommand{\@gls@makefirstuc}[1]{\MakeTextUppercase #1}
(Remember that command names that contain the @ character must
either be placed in packages or be placed between \makeatletter
and \makeatother.)
\textsmaller{#1}.11