List of Acronyms

What?

A list of acronyms identifies all the acronyms that are used in the current document. Each acronym is printed with its short and long version and a reference to the page or pages where it is used.

How?

To define acronyms and print a list of acronyms, the acro package is recommended. It adds little overhead and does not require external tools such as makeindex.

Setup

Include the package in your main document's preamble:

\usepackage{acro}

Below, add the following lines to define a custom template that controls the display of the list of acronyms:

\NewAcroTemplate[list]{HgbDescription}{%
\acroheading
\acropreamble
\begin{description}
  \acronymsmapF{%
    \item[\acrowrite{short}\acroifT{alt}{/\acrowrite{alt}}] ~ \newline
      \acrowrite{list}%
      \acroifanyT{foreign,extra}{ (}%
      \acroifT{foreign}{\acrowrite{foreign}\acroifT{extra}{, }}%
      \acroifT{extra}{\acrowrite{extra}}%
      \acroifanyT{foreign,extra}{)}%
      \dotfill%\acropagefill
      \acropages
        {\acrotranslate{page}\nobreakspace}
        {\acrotranslate{pages}\nobreakspace}%
    }
    {\item\AcroRerun}
\end{description}
}

Then call the package's setup command to define basic behavior:

\acsetup{
  first-style=long-short, % long-short|short-long|short|long|footnote
  subsequent-style=short, % long-short|short-long|short|long|footnote
  single=false, % set to "true" if an acronym that has only been used once should not be part of the list of acronyms
  make-links=true, % set to "true" to link acronyms with their entry in the list of acronyms
  list/display=used, % set to "all" to print all defined acronyms, no matter if they are referenced or not
  list/template=HgbDescription, % output list of acronyms using the template above
  list/heading=chapter*, % use chapter* as heading (default)
  pages/display=all, % show page numbers in the list of acronyms (change to none to remove them)
}

Finally, create a file called acronyms.tex and included it right after the setup:

\input{acronyms}

Defining Acronyms

Now define your acronyms in acronyms.tex like this:

\DeclareAcronym{jpg}{
  short=JPEG,
  long=Joint Photographic Experts Group,
  alt=JPG,
  sort=jpeg,
  tag=acro
}

\DeclareAcronym{ufo}{
  short=UFO,
  long=unidentified flying object,
  foreign=unbekanntes Flugobjekt,
  foreign-plural-form=unbekannte Flugobjekte,
  foreign-babel=ngerman,
  long-indefinite=an,
  tag=acro
}

Use \DeclareAcronym to create a new acronym. Every acronym needs at least a short and a long entry. alt allows you to specify alternative spellings. foreign defines the long version in a different language which can be specified by foreign-babel. Use tag to tag your acronyms. You can later use this to print multiple lists of acronyms that only contain specific tags.

Using Acronyms

To use an acronym in your text, call the \ac command with the acronym identifier.

The image format used was \ac{jpg}. [...] \ac{jpg} provides good image quality with a relatively small file size.

This will print the long version together with the short version in brackets for the first occurrence and only the short version for every subsequent usage in the text:

The image format used was Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG or JPG). [...] JPEG provides good image quality with a relatively small file size.

Printing the List of Acronyms

To add a list of acronyms, add the following lines to the backmatter of your main document (e.g., main.tex):

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\acrolistname}
\printacronyms

The \printacronyms command creates the list of acronyms, whereas \addcontentsline places an entry for the list of acronyms in your table of contents.

To print a list with only specific entries (e.g., only acronyms but no nomenclature), you can specify an optional parameter:

\printacronyms[add=acro]

Where?

The list of acronyms is usually placed in the back of your document, after the last chapter or the appendices but before the bibliography. Add it after the command \backmatter to ensure that it is not treated as a regular chapter or an appendix in terms of chapter headings.

Lists of acronyms are also sometimes found in the introduction or the state of the art section of your thesis.

Package Information

All commands above are part of the acro package. Refer to the package's manual for additional configuration options.