LaTeX glossary and list of acronyms

39 Comments

According to Wikipedia, a glossary is an alphabetical list of terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. It doesn’t come as a surprise that there are several LaTeX packages that assist with the generation of glossaries. Among them are the nomencl package, the glossary package, and the glossaries package. Nomencl has been around for quite some time and I previously wrote about it on this blog. Glossary is obsolete and has been replaced by glossaries, the most recent and flexible of the three packages. Here, I’ll introduce the glossaries package and provide some code that I hope will help non-expert LaTeX users to generate a glossary or list of acronyms.

 

Overview of the steps to generate a glossary
  1. Prepare the tex file
    • Load the package
    • Tell LaTeX to generate a glossary
    • Define the terms and their definitions
    • Use the terms
    • Print the glossary
  2. Typeset the document
  3. Generate the index file
  4. Typeset the document again

 

A basic example

basic_glossaries

\documentclass{article}

% Load the package
\usepackage{glossaries}

% Generate the glossary
\makeglossaries

\begin{document}

%Term definitions
\newglossaryentry{utc}{name=UTC, description={Coordinated Universal Time}}
\newglossaryentry{adt}{name=ADT, description={Atlantic Daylight Time}}
\newglossaryentry{est}{name=EST, description={Eastern Standard Time}}

% Use the terms
\gls{utc} is 3 hours behind \gls{adt} and 10 hours ahead of \gls{est}.

%Print the glossary
\printglossaries

\end{document}

Most commands are straight forward. A few remarks on the term definition command \newglossaryentry. The first argument it takes is the label used to produce the term later. The second argument is a key-value pair defining the term and its description. Curly brackets are required if name or description consist of multiple words, commas, etc.

\newglossaryentry{⟨label⟩}{name={⟨key⟩}, description={⟨value⟩}}

 

Capitalize and pluralize terms

The command \gls produces the name of the term given the label. To capitalize the first letter or pluralize the term, the package implements additional commands.

% Standard command
\gls{⟨label⟩}

% Capitalize first letter
\Gls{⟨label⟩}

% Pluralize term
\glspl{⟨label⟩}

%Capitalize and pluralize term
\Glspl{⟨label⟩}

 

Acronyms

Acronyms are different from glossary entries. For acronyms, the definition is produced in the text with the acronym in parentheses. For glossary entries, only the name is produced. The package distinguishes between glossary and list of acronyms. To do that, the user defines acronyms differently from glossary entries.

\newacronym{⟨label⟩}{⟨abbrv⟩}{⟨full⟩}

By default, acronyms are produced as part of the glossary. To generate a separate list of acronyms, the package needs to be loaded with the acronym option.

\usepackage[acronym]{glossaries}

Let’s see what the basic example above looks like when we define the terms as acronyms and use the acronym option.

And here is an example of a document with a list of acronyms.

basic_glossaries_acronym

\documentclass{article}

% Load the package with the acronym option
\usepackage[acronym,nomain]{glossaries}

% Generate the glossary
\makeglossaries

\begin{document}

\section*{Section with acronyms}

% Acronym definitions
\newacronym{utc}{UTC}{Coordinated Universal Time}
\newacronym{adt}{ADT}{Atlantic Daylight Time}
\newacronym{est}{EST}{Eastern Standard Time}

% Use the acronyms
\gls{utc} is 3 hours behind \gls{adt} and 10 hours ahead of \gls{est}.

%Print the glossary
\printglossaries

\small\hfill Created by http://texblog.org

\end{document}

The same alternative commands as for the glossary are used to capitalize and pluralize acronyms.

 

Generate the glossary or list of acronyms

Probably the trickiest part comes next. The formatted glossary or list of acronyms needs to be generated from the list of glossary entries or acronyms using makeindex. Your editor might have a button, but in general the files are generated in the terminal/command-line. The package author provides a Perl script makeglossaries that greatly simplifies this step. However, it requires Perl to be installed on your computer.

After typesetting the document once (latex/pdflatex), go to the terminal, navigate to the project folder and try the following:

makeglossaries filename

Replace filename with the name of your tex document.

If this doesn’t work, you probably don’t have Perl installed and need to use makeindex instead (see below). If you manage to run the Perl script but some entries are rejected, the problem is in the LaTeX code.

Here is my makeglossaries output for glossary and list of acronyms:

makeglossaries_output_glossary

makeglossaries_output1

 

Using makeindex to generate the glossary or list of acronyms

Again, replace “filename” with your the name of your tex document.

# Glossary
makeindex -s filename.ist -t filename.glg -o filename.gls filename.glo

# List of acronyms
makeindex -s filename.ist -t filename.alg -o filename.acr filename.acn

About these files:

  • *.ist : an input style file, generated by LaTeX.
  • *.glo, *.acn : definition files containing the glossary terms, acronyms respectively, generated by LaTeX
  • *.glg, *.alg : log files
  • *.gls, *.acr : makeindex outputs containing the formatted glossary, list of acronyms respectively.

 

Produce the glossary or list of acronyms in the document

If this worked, you’re almost done. All you need to do now is go back to the LaTeX document and typeset it again. The glossary or list of acronyms should show up in the document now. Typeset again to make sure the table of contents is updated.

 
This concludes the basics on glossaries. I might write more about this package later. If you have questions, see the package documentation on CTAN or drop me a comment below. Thanks.

39 Comments

    • tom

      Do you do this:

      \printglossaries

      Please provide a minimal working example and I’ll see what I can do…

      Reply

      • Marco

        Hi! I have copied the example above about Acronyms but even using \printglossaries the list doesn’t appear

      • tom

        Hi Marco,

        Thanks for your comment. Did you run makeglossaries in the command line as explained towards the end of the article?

        Best, Tom

  3. joe

    Hi, great entry, really helped me!
    On addition for people with similar problems;
    in Texmaker you can’t define the three commands for makeindex in the makeindex-field.
    You have to either specify it as custom command or enter it manually into your compile-line like this:

    latex... | bibtex ... | makeindex -s %.ist -t %.alg -o %.acr %.acn | makeindex -s %.ist -t %.glg -o %.gls %.glo | latex | latex | pdf

    With this your acronyms and glossary will shop up correctly.

    Reply

    • Arslane Hamza Cherif

      Thank you very much, I was stuck and your solution worked like a charm. However, I have just one more question: “Am i obliged to execute all these commands each time I update my list of acronyms ?

      Thanks,

      Best Regards,
      Arslane

      Reply

      • Hi there,

        That’s right. If you update the list of acronyms, you would have to rerun the command. What I usually do is write a shell/batch script that contains all the commands (latex, bibtex, glossaries, etc.) and then just run the script or use latexmk.

        Best, Tom

  4. Tester

    Thanks for this post. How can I add some space between the Abbreviation and its full form. They are very close to each other, I need some space between them.

    Reply

    • tom

      Hi,

      You can add more space between the abbreviation and the full name by redefining \glsnamefont:

      \renewcommand{\glsnamefont}[1]{\textbf{#1}\hspace{20pt}}
      Reply

  6. Dim.

    Hello,

    Thanks for the post.

    There is an issue when the acronym is firstly defined in plural: No gap between the expanded version and the acronym in parenthesis

    Reply

      • Dim.

        Yes I am using this package. The problem I am having it the following:
        Assume I have the acronym ACR. Then if the expanded version appears in text for the first time in plural, I get ”…Acronyms(ACRs)…”

        Currently I have identified the following problem in the filename.glsdefs file:
        firstplural={Acrpnyms(ACNs)},%

        To solve it, I manually enter a gap in the file.

        Perhaps there is a smarter way to solve the issue.

        Cheers,
        Dim.

      • tom

        According to the bug tracker here, moving the definition of the acronym to the preamble solves the issue.

        Personally, I have all acronyms in a file called ‘acronyms.tex’. I load the file in the preamble using: 

        \input{abbreviations}

        HTH, Tom

    • tom

      Hi there, thanks for telling me. I’m working on the issue. It should be fixed for this particular article now. Best, Tom.

      Reply

  8. audric

    And about the first methode, i have these messages :

    audric-jan:~ audricjan$ makeglossaries rapport
    makeglossaries version 2.14 (2014-03-06)
    Auxiliary file ‘rapport.aux’ doesn’t exist. Have you run LaTeX?

    or

    audric-jan:~ audricjan$ makeglossaries /Users/audricjan/Desktop/rapport\ tex/rapport.aux
    makeglossaries version 2.14 (2014-03-06)
    added glossary type ‘main’ (glg,gls,glo)
    added glossary type ‘acronym’ (alg,acr,acn)
    The file extension ‘aux’ doesn’t correspond to any
    known glossary extension. Try running makeglossaries
    without an extension, e.g. makeglossaries “/Users/audricjan/Desktop/rapport tex/rapport”.

    Reply

    • tom

      Hi Audric,

      The second methods should work if you do what it says in the last line. Try running makeglossaries without an extension (remove .aux).

      Let me know if you run into more issues.

      Tom

      Reply

  9. audric

    Sorry, i made a mistek in my precedent message, you can forget it..

    The message i have is :

    audric-jan:~ audricjan$ makeglossaries /Users/audricjan/Desktop/rapport\ tex/rapport
    makeglossaries version 2.14 (2014-03-06)
    added glossary type ‘main’ (glg,gls,glo)
    makeindex -s “rapport.ist” -t “/Users/audricjan/Desktop/rapport tex/rapport.glg” -o “/Users/audricjan/Desktop/rapport tex/rapport.gls” “/Users/audricjan/Desktop/rapport tex/rapport.glo”
    Index style file rapport.ist not found.
    Usage: makeindex [-ilqrcgLT] [-s sty] [-o ind] [-t log] [-p num] [idx0 idx1 …]

    ***Call to makeindex failed***

    Possible cause of problem:

    Style name indicates makeindex, but may be in xindy format.
    Remember to use \setStyleFile to specify the name
    of the style file rather than redefining \istfilename
    explicitly.

    Check ‘/Users/audricjan/Desktop/rapport tex/rapport.glg’ for details
    audric-jan:~ audricjan$

    Reply

    • tom

      Hi Audric,

      Please remove the white space in your document folder, e.g. rename “rapport tex” to “rapport_tex”. Then delete meta files such as .aux, .glg, .gls, .glo, .ist and rerun LaTeX and makeglossaries. If that doesn’t help, post a minimal example here. That is, a LaTeX document with just one glossary entry and no or little content. I will then run it on my computer and try to advise.

      Cheers, Tom

      Reply

      • audric

        Thank you for your help. I tried with deleting the space, but it still doesn’t work and i have the same message..

        Here is my program :

        \documentclass[a4paper,12pt,oneside] {report}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[francais]{babel}
\usepackage{glossaries}
\makeglossaries

\begin{document}
\newglossaryentry{chu}{name=CHU, description={Centre Hospitalier Universitaire}}
\pagenumbering{roman}

\clearpage
\chapter*{Abréviations}
\printglossaries

\clearpage
\setcounter{page}{1}
\pagenumbering{arabic}

\chapter{Introduction}
\section{Présentation de l'établissement}
Le \gls{chu} de Rennes est à la fois un établissement de soins, de recherche et d'enseignement, implanté sur cinq sites de la ville :\\

\end{document}

      • tom

        Hi Audric,

        Your code is absolutely fine. All you have to do is change directory and run makeglossaries from within the project folder, rather than using the path to the file.

        cd ~/Desktop/rapport\ tex/
makeglossaries rapport

        Also, to change the heading use the following line rather than \chapter:

        \printglossary[type=\acronymtype, title={Abréviations}]

      • audric

        hi! it’s ok now! shame on me..i didn’t know i have to write “sudo” before “makeglossaries”….

      • audric

        It’s strange, all it’s ok for me, only chen “sudo”.. maybe it’s better that i let it like this! In all the cases, thank you very much for you time tom!

        Just a last question, do you know how i can delete the number page that is written after each word in the glossary?

  10. Thanks. I was using ‘makeglossaries’ with the name of my glossaries file and couldn’t for the life of me figure out why it wasn’t working! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction

    Reply

  11. Bobie

    Please help !!! I didn’t understand this error even though I have already installed perl

    ” makeglossaries : The script interpreter could not be found.

    makeglossaries: Data: scriptInterpreter=”perl.exe”

    Process exited with error(s) ”

    thnks 🙂

    Reply

    • tom

      Hi Bobie,

      As I won’t be able to reproduce the problem, I can’t offer you any specific help. What comes to my mind is that either Perl was not properly installed or makeglossaries cannot find the software. You can find some suggestions on the former here and on the latter here. Alternatively, you could try to generate the glossaries using makeindex (see here).

      Best wishes,
      Tom

      Reply

  12. Sien Van Loo

    Hi

    I’m using Papeeria to create an Latex-file. I like to create a list of acronyms but I don’t have Perl on my computer. Now I have followed to procedure with makeindex but it still doesn’t work. So I wondered if it was possible to perhaps give me a extensive example or are there other methods to create a list of acronyms?

    Kind regards

    Reply

    • tom

      Hi there,

      The alternative would be to use the acronym package, but there is no difference. You would still have to use makeindex.

      I’m not familiar with Papeeria, but maybe they can help you. If you’d like to run it on your computer, you’ll have to open the command line, navigate to the project directory and then use the makeindex command to create a list of acronyms. You might have to first typeset the document using (pdf)latex.

      I might be able to help if you send me the error you get from makeindex or describe the problem.

      Best, Tom

      Reply

  13. Marco Pizzolato

    Hi,

    thank you very much for this helpful guide!!

    I have a quaestion: when I use tableofcontents the Glossary section (which is correctly generated) is not taken into account in the table of content..

    Can you help me?

    Thanks in advance,

    Marco

    Reply

    • tom

      Hi Marco,

      Thanks for your question. Try loading the package with these options:

      \usepackage[toc,section=section]{glossaries}

      Let me know if it worked.

      Best, Tom

      Reply

  14. Sheela

    I have used the following code to for list of abbreviations. abbreviations are creating but i am not able to generate the list. please anybody help me to print the list after table of contents

    \documentclass{article}
\usepackage[acronym]{glossaries}
\makeglossaries
\begin{document}
\newacronym{des}{DES}{Data Encryption Standard}

\printglossaries
\end{document}
    Reply

    • tom

      Hi Sheela,

      You’ll have to create the list using makeglossaries or makeindex, either in your editor or in the terminal/commandline. This is explained towards the end of the article. Let me know if you have further questions.

      Best,
      Tom

      Reply

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