[Tex/LaTex] Glossaries: Make a glossary entry recognizable in printing

Question

How do you make it visible to the reader that the printed word/term is an entry in the glossary? In my PDF on the computer, I just see it because I use the hyperref package and there's a red box around it. But when printing it, there's just nothing that makes it visible to the user.

Is there a typographically good and common way of doing this?

Answer 1

I suggest to use italic, small caps or (asssuming the running text is typeset in serif) a sans serif font to indicate glossary entries resp. their first use in the text. You may also add a "Conventions" section to introduce the chosen typographic style to the reader.

Here's an example using the glossaries package:

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand*{\glossfirstformat}[1]{\textsf{#1}}

\usepackage{glossaries}
\makeglossaries

\renewcommand{\glsdisplayfirst}[4]{\glossfirstformat{#1#4}}
\renewcommand*{\glsnamefont}{\sffamily}

\newglossaryentry{electrolyte}{name=electrolyte,%
    description={solution able to conduct electric current}}

\textheight=160pt% just for the example

\begin{document}

\section*{Conventions}

A glossary entry is displayed \glossfirstformat{this way} the first time
it is used in the document.

\section{A section}

Some text about \gls{electrolyte}.

Some more text about \gls{electrolyte}.

\printglossaries

\end{document}