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. The package has been wrapped and configured in hgbacro.styto make it easier to use.

Setup

If you are using one of the thesis templates using hgbthesis.cls, then hgbacro.sty is already included. To use it with hgbarticle.cls or hgbreport.cls, include the package in your main document's preamble:

\usepackage{hgbacro}

The package requires the acronyms to be defined in a file called acronyms.tex, which needs to be in the root directory of your document. This file is already present for the thesis templates and contains some examples. If you're writing an article or a report, you have to create it first.

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 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 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 but no nomenclature), you can specify an optional parameter that includes only entries with a tag called acro.

\PrintAcronyms[include=acro]

If you decide to print a list of acronyms, you can set make-links=true in hgbacro.sty 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 make some changes in hgbacro.sty since the list of acronyms is configured as a separate chapter and you will most likely only need a section or subsection in this case.

Package Information

hgbacro.sty solely uses commands from the acro package. Refer to the package's manual for additional configuration options.