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?

The acro package is recommended to define abbreviations and print a list of acronyms. 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}

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=false,          % 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=description, % use acro's description template
  list/heading=chapter,      % use chapter as heading
  pages/display=all          % show all pages where an acronym was used
}

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:

% Acronyms (tagged "acro")

\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
}

% Nomenclature (tagged "nomencl")

\DeclareAcronym{pi}{
  short=\ensuremath{\pi},
  long=The ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter,
  sort=pi,
  first-style=short,
  tag=nomencl
}

\DeclareAcronym{c}{
  short=\ensuremath{c},
  long=The speed of light in vacuum,
  sort=c,
  first-style=short,
  tag=nomencl
}

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.

If you define nomenclature (mathematical symbols), it makes sense to use first-style=short so that the short version (the symbol) is always used in the running text.

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):

\printacronyms

To print a list with only specific entries (e.g., only acronyms tagged with acro but not the nomenclature tagged with nomencl), you can specify an optional parameter:

\printacronyms[include=acro]

Printing a list of acronyms is optional. If you simply want the functionality to typeset acronyms consistently throughout your document, you do not necessarily need a list. If you decide to print it, though, you can set make-links=true in the \acsetup command to create PDF links from the acronyms to their description in the list of acronyms.

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. In this case, you need to change list/heading=chapter in the \acsetup command to section (if you want it to create a section heading) or none (if you want to create the list in an existing section of your text).

Package Information

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