[Tex/LaTex] How to effectively use List of Symbols for a thesis using .bib files

glossaries-extrasymbolstable of contents

Actually, this question has been already asked here:
How to effectively use List of Symbols for a thesis?

And there is a very good answer with 4 methods.

However…

Thank you very much for the post, very interesting! I am trying to implement the method 4 on Overleaf.com, but I meet some problems… Would be someone so kind to help me?

I have followed the example here above creating a file 'greek-symbols.bib' exactly as described above. Then I have a created a "symbols.tex" file:

\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,
     record % using 'bib2gls'
]{glossaries-extra}

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
 src={greek-symbols},% entries in 'greek-symbols.bib'
 type=symbols,% put these entries in the 'symbols' glossary
 save-locations=false% don't save locations
]

In the main.tex, I call this file, the settings, and build the document (for example):

\input{head/settings.tex}  % place your packages, etc... in this file!
\input{symbols.tex}

\begin{document}

\tableofcontents
\listoftables
% Symbols
\printunsrtglossary[type=symbols,style=long,title={List of Symbols}]

\chapter{Mathematics}
Some symbols
Reference symbols: $\gls{x}$, $\gls{v}$, $\gls{a}$, $\gls{t}$, $\gls{F}$.

\end{document}

But the problem is that I obtain the following error:

Package gloassaries-extra Warning: No file 'output.glstex' on input
line 13.

If I look at line 13, it corresponds to the end of command

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
 src={greek-symbols},% entries in 'greek-symbols.bib'
 type=symbols,% put these entries in the 'symbols' glossary
 save-locations=false% don't save locations
]

What is going on? Why following strictly the example, it does not work?

I would be very thankful if someone can help me.

Best regards, Elfo

Best Answer

I will demonstrate using some of the example .bib files provided with bib2gls.

mathgreek.bib defines some sample symbols that are all mathematical Greek characters. The LaTeX kernel doesn't provide commands for Greek characters that look the same as Latin character. This stems back to the days of limited resources and, for example, omicron could simply be produced with $o$ . Unfortunately, from a sorting point of view this would result in omicron being placed between N and P instead of between Xi and Pi.

The interpreter used by bib2gls recognises the missing commands \omicron etc and so can correctly order them with the other math-Greek commands. However, it's necessary for LaTeX to also recognise them as well. The glossaries-extra-bib2gls package (automatically loaded with \usepackage[record]{glossaries-extra}) now provides these missing commands. The mathgreek.bib example file allows for an older version that doesn't provide them and uses @preamble to provide the definition of \omicron:

@preamble{"\providecommand{\omicron}{o}"}

The entries are defined using @symbol. The identifier field is a custom field that bib2gls won't recognise by default, but it's possible to provide or alias the field on a per-document basis. This just makes the .bib file more widely useful across multiple documents. The first couple of entries are:

@symbol{alpha,
  name={\ensuremath{\alpha}},
  description={alpha},
  identifier={mathgreek}
}

@symbol{beta,
  name={\ensuremath{\beta}},
  description={beta},
  identifier={mathgreek}
}

The other entries follow the same format.

mathsobjects.bib is rather more complicated. It first provides some semantic commands to format the notation:

@preamble{"\providecommand{\setfmt}[1]{\mathcal{#1}}
\providecommand{\setcontentsfmt}[1]{\{#1\}}
\providecommand{\setmembershipfmt}[2]{\setcontentsfmt{#1: #2}}
\providecommand{\setmembershiponeargfmt}[1]{\setmembershipfmt#1}
\providecommand{\setcardfmt}[1]{\lvert#1\rvert}
\providecommand{\numspacefmt}[1]{\mathbb{#1}}
\providecommand{\transposefmt}[1]{#1^T}
\providecommand{\invfmt}[1]{#1^{-1}}
\providecommand{\vecfmt}[1]{\boldsymbol{#1}}
\providecommand{\mtxfmt}[1]{\boldsymbol{#1}}"}

So, for example, \setfmt formats its argument in a calligraphic font to denote a set. The first three entries are defined as:

@symbol{set,
  name={\ensuremath{\setfmt{S}}},
  description={\sortart{a}{set}},
  format={setfmt},
  identifier={set}
}

@symbol{setcontents,
  name={\ensuremath{\setcontentsfmt{\ldots}}},
  description={set contents},
  format={setcontentsfmt},
  identifier={set}
}

@symbol{setmembership,
  name={\ensuremath{\setmembershipfmt{\vecfmt{x}}{\ldots}}},
  description={set membership},
  format={setmembershiponeargfmt},
  identifier={set}
}

The other entries are defined in a similar way. Again the custom identifier field is used, which bib2gls will ignore by default. There's also another custom field called format that's used to store the name of a control sequence that takes a single argument that applies the appropriate format. This will also be ignored by default.

baseunits.bib uses a custom entry type (@unit), so bib2gls will ignore all entries in this file unless an alias is set up. This means that different documents using the same .bib file can use whatever's the most appropriate entry type. For example, if a document needs @unit to be treated as @symbol, then the document needs to set up the alias:

entry-type-aliases={unit=symbol}

or if @unit should be treated as @entry:

entry-type-aliases={unit=entry}

The first few entries are defined as:

@unit{ampere,
  unitname={ampere},
  unitsymbol={\si{\ampere}},
  measurement={electric current},
  identifier={baseunit}
}

@unit{kilogram,
  unitname={kilogram},
  unitsymbol={\si{\kilogram}},
  measurement={mass},
  identifier={baseunit}
}

@unit{metre,
  unitname={metre},
  unitsymbol={\si{\metre}},
  measurement={length},
  identifier={baseunit}
}

The other entries all follow the same format. In this case all the fields are custom fields that bib2gls will ignore by default, so they will need to be aliased. This again allows greater flexibility across multiple documents that use the same .bib file.

makruplanguages.bib has a mixture of normal entries (@entry) and abbreviations (@abbreviation). This provides a custom command used to tag the abbreviation initials. This just does its argument by default:

@preamble{"\providecommand{\abbrvtag}[1]{#1}"}

The .bib file also defines a bib variable for convenience:

@string{markuplang="\abbrvtag{m}arkup \abbrvtag{l}anguage"}

This variable is just for use in the .bib file. String concatenation is performed with # in a .bib file. For example:

long = {e\abbrvtag{x}tensible } # markuplang

is equivalent to:

long = {e\abbrvtag{x}tensible \abbrvtag{m}arkup \abbrvtag{l}anguage}

The first few entries are:

@entry{TeX,
  name={{}\TeX},
  description={a format for describing complex type and page layout
    often used for mathematics, technical, and academic publications},
  identifier={markuplanguage}
}

@entry{LaTeX,
  name={{}\LaTeX},
  description={a format of \glstext{TeX} designed to separate
   content from style},
  identifier={markuplanguage}
}

@entry{markdown,
  name={markdown},
  description={a lightweight markup language with plain text
    formatting syntax},
  identifier={markuplanguage}
}

@abbreviation{xml,
  short={XML},
  long={e\abbrvtag{x}tensible }#markuplang,
  description={a markup language that defines a set of rules for
    encoding documents},
  identifier={markuplanguage}
}

@abbreviation{html,
  short={HTML},
  long={\abbrvtag{h}yper\abbrvtag{t}ext }#markuplang,
  description={the standard markup language for creating web pages},
  identifier={markuplanguage}
}

The empty group {} in front of \TeX and \LaTeX is in case any automated first letter upper-casing command is applied, as it's not appropriate for these commands.

Some of the sample .bib files use custom commands such as \sortart. There are three different .bib files that provide these commands: no-interpret-preamble.bib, interpret-preamble.bib and interpret-preamble2.bib. For now, I'm just going to use no-interpret-preamble.bib which contains:

@preamble{"\providecommand{\sortname}[2]{#1 #2}
\providecommand{\sortvonname}[3]{#1 #2 #3}
\providecommand{\sortart}[2]{#1 #2}
\providecommand{\sortmediacreator}[2]{#1 #2}"}

The first example document just has a single list to get started. The mathsobjects.bib file includes commands that are provided by amssymb, and the baseunits.bib file includes commands that are provided by siunitx, so those packages will need to be loaded:

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\usepackage[record]{glossaries-extra}

% always set the abbreviation style before \GlsXtrLoadResources
\setabbreviationstyle{long-short-desc}

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={no-interpret-preamble,mathgreek,mathsobjects,baseunits,markuplanguages},% bib files
  sort={en-GB},% sort according to this locale
  entry-type-aliases={unit=entry},% make @unit behave like @entry
  field-aliases={
    unitname=name,
    unitsymbol=symbol,
    measurement=description
  },
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\begin{document}
\printunsrtglossaries
\end{document}

If the file is called test.tex then the document build is:

pdflatex test
bib2gls test
pdflatex test

(Replace pdflatex with xelatex etc, as appropriate.)

This creates a single glossary that starts as follows:

This places beta (β) between "ampere" and "candela". The sort values are determined by the entry type. For example, if an entry is defined with @entry then the sort value is obtained from the name field, if an entry is defined with @abbreviation then the sort value is obtained from the short field, and if an entry is defined with @symbol then the sort value is obtained from the label. So β is actually sorted by its label beta.

You can change the field used to obtain the default sort value for the @symbol entries using the symbol-sort-fallback option. For example, to use the name field instead:

symbol-sort-fallback=name

(For abbreviations, you can use abbreviation-sort-fallback.) Below is a modified version of the above MWE that sorts symbols according to the name field:

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\usepackage[record]{glossaries-extra}

% always set the abbreviation style before \GlsXtrLoadResources
\setabbreviationstyle{long-short-desc}

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={no-interpret-preamble,mathgreek,mathsobjects,baseunits,markuplanguages},% bib files
  sort={en-GB},% sort according to this locale
  entry-type-aliases={unit=entry},% make @unit behave like @entry
  field-aliases={
    unitname=name,
    unitsymbol=symbol,
    measurement=description
  },
  symbol-sort-fallback=name,
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\begin{document}
\printunsrtglossaries
\end{document}

The start of the glossary now looks like:

The Greek letters now come after Z:

There are a number of ways of splitting the data up into separate glossaries. This first method prevents the creation of the default main glossary (using the nomain package option) and defines three glossaries with labels that correspond to the entry type (without the initial @). This means that the type can easily be assigned using:

type={same as entry}

Here's the updated MWE:

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\usepackage[record,nomain]{glossaries-extra}

\newglossary*{entry}{Glossary}
\newglossary*{abbreviation}{Abbreviations}
\newglossary*{symbol}{Symbols}

% always set the abbreviation style before \GlsXtrLoadResources
\setabbreviationstyle{long-short-desc}

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={no-interpret-preamble,mathgreek,mathsobjects,baseunits,markuplanguages},% bib files
  sort={en-GB},% sort according to this locale
  entry-type-aliases={unit=entry},% make @unit behave like @entry
  field-aliases={
    unitname=name,
    unitsymbol=symbol,
    measurement=description
  },
  symbol-sort-fallback=name,
  type={same as entry},
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\begin{document}
\printunsrtglossaries
\end{document}

The document now has three lists. The first is the entry glossary:

The second is the abbreviation glossary:

The third is the symbol glossary, which starts:

The Greek characters again come after Z.

Unlike the \makeglossaries approach (using makeindex or xindy), this method only has two associated glossary files: the .glstex which is input by \GlsXtrLoadResources and the .glg transcript file (which contains messages from bib2gls). With makeindex/xindy a document that has three glossary lists would have 10 corresponding glossary files (3 per glossary plus the style file).

With bib2gls, it's not the number of glossaries but the number of \GlsXtrLoadResources commands that determines the number of associated glossary files. Here's an alternative to the above that uses two resource commands:

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\usepackage[record,abbreviations,symbols]{glossaries-extra}

% always set the abbreviation style before \GlsXtrLoadResources
\setabbreviationstyle{long-short-desc}

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={no-interpret-preamble,markuplanguages},% bib files
  sort={en-GB},% sort according to this locale
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={mathgreek,mathsobjects,baseunits},% bib files
  sort={letter-case},% sort according Unicode value
  entry-type-aliases={unit=entry},% make @unit behave like @entry
  field-aliases={
    unitname=name,
    unitsymbol=symbol,
    measurement=description
  },
  symbol-sort-fallback=name,
  type=symbols,
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\begin{document}
\printunsrtglossaries
\end{document}

In this case, I've used the abbreviations and symbols package option to create the glossaries labelled abbreviations and symbols. Package options that are provided by the base glossaries package are processed before options that are only provided by glossaries-extra, so \printunsrtglossaries will now list the glossaries in the order: main (default), symbols, abbreviations. You can change the order by using \printunsrtglossary for each individual glossary. For example:

\printunsrtglossary[type=abbreviations]
\printunsrtglossary % default main glossary
\printunsrtglossary[type=symbols]

This method has the advantage that a different sort method can be used for the symbols list (sort=letter-case). The first resource command doesn't set the glossary with the type option, so the default type is used. This is the default main for normal entries, but the entries defined with @abbreviation in the .bib file are defined using \newabbreviation in the .glstex file, so they will end up in the abbreviations glossary, since the abbreviations package option has been used.

A glossary list can be sub-sorted in blocks by splitting the entries across multiple resource commands. For example:

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\usepackage[record,abbreviations,symbols]{glossaries-extra}

% always set the abbreviation style before \GlsXtrLoadResources
\setabbreviationstyle{long-short-desc}

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={no-interpret-preamble,markuplanguages},% bib files
  sort={en-GB},% sort according to this locale
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={baseunits},% bib file
  sort={letter-case},% sort according Unicode value
  entry-type-aliases={unit=entry},% make @unit behave like @entry
  field-aliases={
    unitname=name,
    unitsymbol=symbol,
    measurement=description
  },
  symbol-sort-fallback=name,
  type=symbols,
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={mathsobjects},% bib file
  sort={letter-case},% sort according Unicode value
  symbol-sort-fallback=name,
  type=symbols,
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={mathgreek},% bib file
  sort={letter-case},% sort according Unicode value
  symbol-sort-fallback=name,
  type=symbols,
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\begin{document}
\printunsrtglossaries
\end{document}

The symbols list now starts with the units:

In this case I've used sort=letter-case for all the sub-blocks, but it's possible to use different sort methods for each block.

Let's suppose I now want to switch to a glossary style that displays letter group headings, for example the treegroup style:

\usepackage[record,abbreviations,symbols,stylemods={tree},style=treegroup]{glossaries-extra}

Now bib2gls needs to be run with the --group (or -g) switch:

bib2gls --group test

If the above change is made to the MWE, this will result in errors like:

! Package inputenc Error: Unicode character 𝛼 (U+1D6FC)
(inputenc)                not set up for use with LaTeX.

This is because bib2gls tries to put the alpha entry into the "𝛼" letter group, but that Unicode character isn't supported by the document. However, in this case it isn't appropriate for each Greek letter to be in its own letter group. Instead the entire block can be assigned to its own group using the group option. The value must be a label. A title can be assigned using \glsxtrsetgrouptitle{label}{title}. For example:

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\usepackage[record,abbreviations,symbols,stylemods={tree},style=treegroup]{glossaries-extra}

% always set the abbreviation style before \GlsXtrLoadResources
\setabbreviationstyle{long-short-desc}

% Assign group titles:
\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{units}{SI Units}
\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{latin}{Latin Symbols}
\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{greek}{Greek Symbols}

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={no-interpret-preamble,markuplanguages},% bib files
  sort={en-GB},% sort according to this locale
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={baseunits},% bib file
  sort={letter-case},% sort according Unicode value
  entry-type-aliases={unit=entry},% make @unit behave like @entry
  field-aliases={
    unitname=name,
    unitsymbol=symbol,
    measurement=description
  },
  symbol-sort-fallback=name,
  type=symbols,
  group=units,
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={mathsobjects},% bib file
  sort={letter-case},% sort according Unicode value
  symbol-sort-fallback=name,
  type=symbols,
  group=latin,
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={mathgreek},% bib file
  sort={letter-case},% sort according Unicode value
  symbol-sort-fallback=name,
  type=symbols,
  group=greek,
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\begin{document}
\printunsrtglossaries
\end{document}

The symbols list now starts:

The custom identifier fields all have values that can be used as labels. It's possible to convert identifier into group using the option:

field-aliases={identifier=group}

The titles need to be supplied:

\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{set}{Sets}
\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{numberspace}{Number Spaces}
\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{matrix}{Matrices and Vectors}

It's now necessary to sort according to the group field in order to keep the members of each group together. This can be done with the option:

sort-field={group}

Entries within the same group then need to be sorted according to the name field. There are two ways to do this.

Set identical-sort-action={name} which will perform a character code comparison on the name field when the compared sort values (obtained from the field identified by sort-field) are identical.
Use sort-suffix={name} which will append the value of the name field to the sort value.

I've used the first option below with sort=en-GB, which means that the sort value (obtained from the group) field will be sorted according to the en-GB collation rules and the name fields will be sorted according to character code (which makes more sense for symbols).

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\usepackage[record,abbreviations,symbols,stylemods={tree},style=treegroup]{glossaries-extra}

% always set the abbreviation style before \GlsXtrLoadResources
\setabbreviationstyle{long-short-desc}

% Assign group titles:
\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{units}{SI Units}
\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{set}{Sets}
\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{numberspace}{Number Spaces}
\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{matrix}{Matrices and Vectors}
\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{greek}{Greek Symbols}

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={no-interpret-preamble,markuplanguages},% bib files
  sort={en-GB},% sort according to this locale
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={baseunits},% bib file
  sort={letter-case},% sort according Unicode value
  entry-type-aliases={unit=entry},% make @unit behave like @entry
  field-aliases={
    unitname=name,
    unitsymbol=symbol,
    measurement=description
  },
  symbol-sort-fallback=name,
  type=symbols,
  group=units,
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={mathsobjects},% bib file
  sort={en-GB},% sort according to this locale
  sort-field={group},% sort according to this field
  identical-sort-action={name},% sort using letter case comparison by this field when sort-field values are identical
  symbol-sort-fallback=name,
  type=symbols,
  field-aliases={identifier=group},
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={mathgreek},% bib file
  sort={letter-case},% sort according Unicode value
  symbol-sort-fallback=name,
  type=symbols,
  group=greek,
  selection=all% select all entries in the .bib files
]

\begin{document}
\printunsrtglossaries
\end{document}

The start of the symbols list now looks like:

There are many predefined styles to choose from.

Acronyms vs Abbreviations

The base glossaries package provides the command \newacronym which may be used to define acronyms or other forms of abbreviations. The package options acronyms or acronym create a new glossary acronym. You can reference it explicitly with that label or use \acronymtype.

The glossaries-extra extension package provides a completely new abbreviation handling system that's more flexible than the one used by the base package. The \newabbreviation command is provided to define all forms of abbreviations (including acronyms) using this new mechanism.

To assist with migrating from just using the base package to using the glossaries-extra package, \newacronym is redefined in terms of \newabbreviation, but it also sets category=acronym (which overrides the default category=abbreviation set by \newabbreviation). It is possible to switch \newacronym back to using the base glossaries package's abbreviation handling, although I don't recommend this.

The glossaries-extra package also permits the acronyms or acronym package option, which can be used as well as or instead of the abbreviations package option. If you use both acronyms/acronym and abbreviations then (if no type is explicitly set) \newacronym will put the entry in the acronym (\acronymtype) glossary and \newabbreviation will put the entry in the abbreviations (\glsxtrabbrvtype) glossary. If you only use the abbreviations package option then \acronymtype is redefined to \glsxtrabbrvtype.

Within the .bib files, you may use either @abbreviation (which will define the entry using \newabbreviation) or @acronym (which will define the entry using \newacronym). Since \newacronym sets category=acronym by default, you need to use the optional argument of \setabbreviationstyle to set the abbreviation style. For example:

\setabbreviationstyle[acronym]{long-short}

Method 1 (no external tools required, manual sorting)

This is the simplest method as it doesn't require any addition to the build process. Requires at least v1.08 of the glossaries-extra package.

Pros and Cons:

you need to define the entries in the required order;
there's no page list associated with each entry in the symbol list (although it's possible to add this manually);
all defined entries will be included in the list regardless of whether or not they have been used in the document;
all entries must be defined before the list is displayed;
no external tools are required.

The first three points also apply to the manual method in your question that uses the tabular environment. The fourth point is automatically ensured by glossaries-extra's default behaviour, which prohibits entries from being defined in the document environment. (If you have a lot of symbols, I recommend you put the definitions in a separate file and load it in the preamble using \input or \loadglsentries.)

Each symbol must first be defined. If the symbols package option is used, this can be done with \glsxtrnewsymbol[options]{label}{symbol}. The symbol can then be referenced in the document using \gls{label}. For example, the symbol $t$ can be defined with the label t using:

\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={time}]{t}{\ensuremath{t}}

It can then be referenced using \gls{t}. An alternative way of defining this symbol is:

\newglossaryentry{t}{name={\ensuremath{t}},sort={t},description={time}}

or (if the symbols glossary has been defined):

\newglossaryentry{t}{name={\ensuremath{t}},sort={t},description={time},type={symbols}}

The \glsxtrnewsymbol command is more compact and is more appropriate for symbols, but the symbols package option is required to provide it.

With this method, I recommend the sort=none package option, as this switches off the redundant construction of the sort key. (This option may not be available if you have an old version of glossaries.)

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage[colorlinks]{hyperref}
\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,sort=none]{glossaries-extra}

\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={position}]{x}{\ensuremath{x}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={velocity}]{v}{\ensuremath{v}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={acceleration}]{a}{\ensuremath{a}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={time}]{t}{\ensuremath{t}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={force}]{F}{\ensuremath{F}}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\printunsrtglossary[type=symbols,style=long]

\chapter{Sample}
Reference symbols: $\gls{x}$, $\gls{v}$, $\gls{a}$, $\gls{t}$,
$\gls{F}$.

\end{document}

If the file is called mydoc.tex, then the build process is:

pdflatex mydoc
pdflatex mydoc

(Replace pdflatex with xelatex etc as appropriate.) The second instance of pdflatex is only needed here to ensure the table of contents and the PDF bookmarks are up-to-date.

This produces the symbol list:

The list of symbols is automatically added to the table of contents:

You can change the title using the title key:

\printunsrtglossary[type=symbols,style=long,title={List of Symbols}]

I've used the long style, which is the closest match to your tabular example, but there are many predefined styles to choose from.

Make sure hyperref is loaded before glossaries-extra. (This is contrary to the general rule that hyperref should be loaded last.) This will allow commands like \gls to link to the relevant entry in the list of symbols.

It is possible to include a location, but as with all manual methods, this can be tiresome an error-prone. The following example only includes a location for the first symbol:

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage[colorlinks]{hyperref}
\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,record]{glossaries-extra}

\glsxtrnewsymbol[
 description={position},
 location={(see chapter~\ref{ch:sample}).}
]{x}{\ensuremath{x}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={velocity}]{v}{\ensuremath{v}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={acceleration}]{a}{\ensuremath{a}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={time}]{t}{\ensuremath{t}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={force}]{F}{\ensuremath{F}}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\printunsrtglossary[type=symbols,style=long]

\chapter{Sample}\label{ch:sample}
Reference symbols: $\gls{x}$, $\gls{v}$, $\gls{a}$, $\gls{t}$,
$\gls{F}$.

\end{document}

The record option (amongst other things), creates a field called location which \printunsrtglossary checks for. The list of symbols now looks like:

Method 2 (using an external tool to sort)

This method is more complicated as it requires an extra step in the build process. It's much like the previous example, but there are a few modifications:

The nonumberlist option is added to suppress the location list that would automatically appear after each entry in the symbol list. (Remove this option if you actually want the locations.)
The command \makeglossaries must be added to the preamble (before the symbols are defined).
The command \printunsrtglossary must be replaced with \printglossary.

Pros and Cons:

the entries are listed alphabetically (according to their sort value);
each entry in the list can have a list of locations where that symbol has been used (with \gls) in the document;
only those entries used (with \gls) in the document are included in the list;
entries may be defined in the document (but this must be enabled with the docdef=restricted or docdef=true package option, which has some potentially problematic issues);
an external tool is required in the build process.

Modified example:

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage[colorlinks]{hyperref}
\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,nonumberlist]{glossaries-extra}

\makeglossaries

\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={position}]{x}{\ensuremath{x}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={velocity}]{v}{\ensuremath{v}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={acceleration}]{a}{\ensuremath{a}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={time}]{t}{\ensuremath{t}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={force}]{F}{\ensuremath{F}}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\printglossary[type=symbols,style=long,title={List of Symbols}]

\chapter{Sample}
Reference symbols: $\gls{x}$, $\gls{v}$, $\gls{a}$, $\gls{t}$,
$\gls{F}$.

\end{document}

Assuming the file is called mydoc.tex, the build process is:

pdflatex mydoc
makeglossaries mydoc
pdflatex mydoc

makeglossaries is a Perl script, so you need Perl installed to use it. If you don't have Perl, there's a light-weight Lua alternative called makeglossaries-lite which you can use instead. (Since modern TeX distributions come with LuaTeX, you should have a Lua interpreter already available.) The build process in this case is:

pdflatex mydoc
makeglossaries-lite mydoc
pdflatex mydoc

(makeglossaries-lite is actually distributed as makeglossaries-lite.lua, but TeX Live on Unix-like systems strip the .lua extension. I don't use Windows, but I think the extension can be omitted there as I believe the Windows distributions convert the Lua script to an executable makeglossaries-lite.exe.)

This produces an ordered list of symbols where the sort order is obtained from the first required argument of \glsxtrnewsymbol, which is also the label used to identify the term. If \newglossaryentry is used instead, the sort defaults to the name field, which causes problems for symbols that are defined in terms of LaTeX commands, such as \alpha or \sum. (This is why \glsxtrnewsymbol uses the label instead.)

Without the nonumberlist option the list includes a location list:

In this case, each location list consists of the number 3, which is the page on which all instances of \gls occur. You can switch to another counter if you prefer (for example, using the counter package option). The postpunc option allows a way of automatically inserting a punctuation character after the description but it's best used with the stylemods option. For example:

\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,stylemods,postpunc=dot]{glossaries-extra}

You can change the sort value using the sort key in the optional argument of \glsxtrnewsymbol. For example:

\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={time},sort={time}]{t}{\ensuremath{t}}

How you actually run makeglossaries/makeglossaries-lite depends on your setup. See, for example:

If you're really stuck you can use the automake package option:

\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,nonumberlist,automake]{glossaries-extra}

This doesn't have the diagnostic tools provided by makeglossaries and requires the shell escape.

Both makeglossaries and makeglossaries-lite call an indexing application. You can call it directly, but you need to know all the necessary switches and file extensions. (The Perl and Lua scripts provided with the glossaries package find the necessary information in the .aux file.) The default behaviour is to use makeindex. You can switch to xindy by adding xindy to the list of package options:

\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,nonumberlist,xindy]{glossaries-extra}

(Note that xindy is a Perl script, so you need Perl installed to use it.) In the above example, there's no difference since \glsxtrnewsymbol sets the sort field to the label, which only contains ASCII characters.

Things become much more complicated if you directly use \newglossaryentry and the name field contains commands. For example:

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage[colorlinks]{hyperref}
\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,nonumberlist]{glossaries-extra}

\makeglossaries

\newglossaryentry{alpha}{
 name=\ensuremath{\alpha},
 description={angular acceleration},
 type=symbols
}
\newglossaryentry{delta}{
 name=\ensuremath{\delta},
 description={Kronecker delta},
 type=symbols
}
\newglossaryentry{lambda}{
 name=\ensuremath{\lambda},
 description={Lagrange multiplier},
 type=symbols
}
\newglossaryentry{chi}{
 name=\ensuremath{\chi},
 description={chromatic number},
 type=symbols
}
\newglossaryentry{zeta}{
 name=\ensuremath{\zeta},
 description={Riemann zeta function},
 type=symbols
}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\printglossary[type=symbols,style=long,title={List of Symbols}]

\chapter{Sample}
Reference symbols: $\gls{delta}$, $\gls{chi}$, $\gls{alpha}$,
$\gls{zeta}$, $\gls{lambda}$.

\end{document}

In this case, the sort field is obtained from the name field, but neither makeindex nor xindy understand LaTeX commands. In the case of makeindex, it treats \ensuremath{\alpha} as a string containing 19 characters, starting with \ so the result is:

This doesn't follow the natural ordering of Greek letters (which should be α δ ζ λ χ) and will position the Greek symbols before Latin symbols (since \ is ordered before a by makeindex).

This example fails completely with xindy. If you use the makeglossaries-lite script, it fails with a cryptic message. If I just modify the document so that it includes the xindy package option:

\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,nonumberlist,xindy]{glossaries-extra}

then makeglossaries-lite reports:

Cannot locate xindy module for language english in codepage nil.
Cannot locate xindy module for language nil in codepage nil.

This is because the document doesn't have the codepage set. This needs to be added:

\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,nonumberlist,
 xindy={codepage=utf8,language=english}]{glossaries-extra}

(This isn't necessary with makeglossaries which falls back on -L english -C utf8 if this information is omitted.) However, even with this information, makeglossaries-lite fails with xindy's rather cryptic message:

ERROR: CHAR: index 0 should be less than the length of the string

Switching to makeglossaries provides a more intelligible explanation:

Sort key required for entries only containing command names.
Attempting to determine which entries have problem sort keys.
Parsing 'mydoc.slo'
5 problematic entries found:

Label: 'chi'. Sort value : '\\ensuremath {\\chi }'
(Try adding sort={chi} to the definition.)
Label: 'delta'. Sort value : '\\ensuremath {\\delta }'
(Try adding sort={delta} to the definition.)
Label: 'zeta'. Sort value : '\\ensuremath {\\zeta }'
(Try adding sort={zeta} to the definition.)
Label: 'alpha'. Sort value : '\\ensuremath {\\alpha }'
(Try adding sort={alpha} to the definition.)
Label: 'lambda'. Sort value : '\\ensuremath {\\lambda }'
(Try adding sort={lambda} to the definition.)

So with xindy you must supply a sensible sort value (or use \glsxtrnewsymbol to default to the label) for entries that only contain commands in the name field.

Method 3 (no external tools required, order by use in the document)

To order the symbol list according to the first time the symbol is used in the document, you need to make the following changes:

Add sort=use
Replace \makeglossaries with \makenoidxglossaries
Replace \printglossary with \printnoidxglossary

Pros and Cons:

entries may be listed in alphabetical order (not recommended with this method) or by order of use (sort=use, as in this example) or by order of definition (sort=def);
each entry in the list can have a list of locations where that symbol has been used (with \gls) in the document;
only those entries used (with \gls) in the document are included in the list;
all entries must be defined in the preamble;
no external tools are required.

As you might be able to gather from the first point, you can also use this method as a substitute for the other two methods. However, when sorting alphabetically, Method 2 is far more efficient and can support various locales (when used with the xindy option), although this may not be applicable for symbols (especially when they just contain ASCII characters). For a large list, this method can take a long time when sorting alphabetically. When sorting by definition (sort=def), this method differs from Method 1 as it only includes those entries that have been used in the document (whereas Method 1 lists all defined entries).

Adjusted example (third page modified to show effect):

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage[colorlinks]{hyperref}
\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,nonumberlist,sort=use]{glossaries-extra}

\makenoidxglossaries

\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={position}]{x}{\ensuremath{x}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={velocity}]{v}{\ensuremath{v}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={acceleration}]{a}{\ensuremath{a}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={time}]{t}{\ensuremath{t}}
\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={force}]{F}{\ensuremath{F}}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\printnoidxglossary[type=symbols,style=long,title={List of Symbols}]

\chapter{Sample}
Reference symbols: $\gls{F}$, $\gls{t}$, $\gls{x}$, $\gls{v}$, $\gls{a}$.

\end{document}

The build process is back to:

pdflatex mydoc
pdflatex mydoc

The list of symbols now looks like:

Again, removing the nonumberlist option makes the location list appear:

Things go badly wrong if you use this method with the default alphabetical sorting when the sort value contains commands. Adjusting the earlier example with Greek symbols:

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage[colorlinks]{hyperref}
\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,nonumberlist]{glossaries-extra}

\makenoidxglossaries

\newglossaryentry{alpha}{
 name=\ensuremath{\alpha},
 description={angular acceleration},
 type=symbols
}
\newglossaryentry{delta}{
 name=\ensuremath{\delta},
 description={Kronecker delta},
 type=symbols
}
\newglossaryentry{lambda}{
 name=\ensuremath{\lambda},
 description={Lagrange multiplier},
 type=symbols
}
\newglossaryentry{chi}{
 name=\ensuremath{\chi},
 description={chromatic number},
 type=symbols
}
\newglossaryentry{zeta}{
 name=\ensuremath{\zeta},
 description={Riemann zeta function},
 type=symbols
}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\printnoidxglossary[type=symbols,style=long,title={List of Symbols}]

\chapter{Sample}
Reference symbols: $\gls{delta}$, $\gls{chi}$, $\gls{alpha}$,
$\gls{zeta}$, $\gls{lambda}$.

\end{document}

During sorting, the following error occurs:

! Improper alphabetic constant.
<to be read again> 
                   \protect 
l.36 ...ymbols,style=long,title={List of Symbols}]

This method is only designed for ASCII sorting. With this method, you must ensure that the sort value doesn't contain any commands (for example, use \glsxtrnewsymbol which obtains the sort value from the label) or use sort=def or sort=use.

Method 4 (external tool and `.bib` file(s) required)

This is a fairly new method. Instead of using makeindex or xindy (via makeglossaries or makeglossaries-lite), it requires bib2gls, which performs two functions:

selects entries according to records found in the .aux file (similar to bibtex);
hierarchically sorts entries and collates location lists (similar to makeindex or xindy).

Pros and Cons:

you need to define the entries in a .bib file (not in the document);
bib2gls allows any location format or you may instruct it to omit the location list;
you can instruct bib2gls to select all defined entries or only recorded entries (and optionally their dependencies);
can interpret common symbol commands;
can sort according to locale, character code, letter-number mix, numeric, date, time, order of definition, order of use, or can shuffle or omit the sorting;
requires at least Java 7.

The symbols are now defined in a .bib file. For example, instead of:

\glsxtrnewsymbol[description={angular acceleration}]{alpha}{\ensuremath{\alpha}}

the symbol is defined as:

@symbol{alpha,
 name={\ensuremath{\alpha}},
 description={angular acceleration}
}

Alternatively, instead of

\newglossaryentry{alpha}{
 name=\ensuremath{\alpha},
 description={angular acceleration},
 type=symbols
}

use

@entry{alpha,
 name={\ensuremath{\alpha}},
 description={angular acceleration}
}

(The type field has been omitted, as it's more flexible to assign it in the document.) As with \glsxtrnewsymbol, the @symbol definition uses the label as the fall back for the sort field, whereas the @entry definition uses the name as the fall back.

For example, the file greek-symbols.bib may contain:

% Encoding: UTF-8

@entry{alpha,
 name={\ensuremath{\alpha}},
 description={angular acceleration}
}
@entry{delta,
 name={\ensuremath{\delta}},
 description={Kronecker delta}
}
@entry{lambda,
 name={\ensuremath{\lambda}},
 description={Lagrange multiplier}
}
@entry{chi,
 name={\ensuremath{\chi}},
 description={chromatic number}
}
@entry{zeta,
 name={\ensuremath{\zeta}},
 description={Riemann zeta function}
}

The document needs the record package option. Instead of nonumberlist I can instruct bib2gls to not save the location list (which is more efficient). Instead of \makeglossaries/\makenoidxglossaries you need to use \GlsXtrLoadResources:

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage[colorlinks]{hyperref}
\usepackage[symbols,nogroupskip,
   record % using 'bib2gls'
]{glossaries-extra}

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
 src={greek-symbols},% entries in 'greek-symbols.bib'
 type=symbols,% put these entries in the 'symbols' glossary
 save-locations=false% don't save locations
]

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\printunsrtglossary[type=symbols,style=long,title={List of Symbols}]

\chapter{Sample}
Reference symbols: $\gls{delta}$, $\gls{chi}$, $\gls{alpha}$,
$\gls{zeta}$, $\gls{lambda}$.

\end{document}

This uses \printunsrtglossary from the earlier Method 1. Unlike the other methods, bib2gls works by selecting only those entries that are required and then writes the definition (\newglossaryentry) to the file input by \GlsXtrLoadResources in the appropriate order. This means that \printunsrtglossary automatically lists the entries in the requested order (since that's the order of definition from glossaries-extra's point of view).

The build process is now

pdflatex mydoc
bib2gls mydoc
pdflatex mydoc

This produces:

(Remove save-locations=false if you want the location list.)

Since bib2gls recognises commands like \ensuremath{\alpha}, it's used the correct Greek order. Alternatively you can instruct bib2gls to sort by the description instead:

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
 src={greek-symbols},
 type=symbols,
 sort-field=description,
 save-locations=false
]

If the file latin-symbols.bib similarly contains the Latin symbols:

% Encoding: UTF-8

@entry{x,
 name={\ensuremath{x}},
 description={position}
}
@entry{v,
 name={\ensuremath{v}},
 description={velocity}
}
@entry{a,
 name={\ensuremath{a}},
 description={acceleration}
}
@entry{t,
 name={\ensuremath{t}},
 description={time}
}
@entry{F,
 name={\ensuremath{F}},
 description={force}
}

Then they can be combined:

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
 src={greek-symbols,latin-symbols},% entries in 'greek-symbols.bib' and 'latin-symbols.bib'
 type=symbols,
 save-locations=false
]

or separated into two distinct groups within the same glossary:

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage[colorlinks]{hyperref}
\usepackage[symbols,
  stylemods={tree},% loads glossaries-extra-stylemods to patch styles
  record % using 'bib2gls'
]{glossaries-extra}

% assign titles to group labels:
\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{latin}{Latin}
\glsxtrsetgrouptitle{greek}{Greek}

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
 src={latin-symbols},
 type=symbols,
 group={latin},% assign group label
 set-widest,% needed for 'alttree' styles
 save-locations=false
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
 src={greek-symbols},
 type=symbols,
 group={greek},% assign group label
 set-widest,% needed for 'alttree' styles
 save-locations=false
]

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\printunsrtglossary[type=symbols,style=alttreegroup,title={List of Symbols}]

\chapter{Sample}
Reference Greek symbols: $\gls{delta}$, $\gls{chi}$, $\gls{alpha}$,
$\gls{zeta}$, $\gls{lambda}$.

Reference Latin symbols: $\gls{x}$, $\gls{v}$, $\gls{a}$, $\gls{t}$,
$\gls{F}$.

\end{document}

The group setting requires the --group (or -g) switch when calling bib2gls:

pdflatex mydoc
bib2gls --group mydoc
pdflatex mydoc

This setting also requires a style that supports group headings, which is why I changed to the style to altlistgroup.

Best Answer

Acronyms vs Abbreviations

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to effectively use List of Symbols for a thesis

Method 1 (no external tools required, manual sorting)

Method 2 (using an external tool to sort)

Method 3 (no external tools required, order by use in the document)

Method 4 (external tool and .bib file(s) required)

Related Question

Method 4 (external tool and `.bib` file(s) required)