[Tex/LaTex] List of acronyms not created

glossaries

I am working on a paper and tried to include an acronym file.
So what I did for that so far is:

Including glossaries package in the header protion of my document: \usepackage[acronym,toc]{glossaries}
Including a \makeglossaries in the header.
Including my acronyms file and a printglossaries in the actual document: \input{acronyms} \printglossaries

Running makeglossaries script shows the following:

makeglossaries template_diplomarbeit  
added glossary type 'acronym' (alg,acr,acn)  
makeindex  -s "template_diplomarbeit.ist" -t "template_diplomarbeit.alg" -o "template_diplomarbeit.acr" "template_diplomarbeit.acn"  
This is makeindex, version 2.15 [20-Nov-2007] (kpathsea + Thai support).  
Scanning style file ./template_diplomarbeit.ist...........................done   (27 attributes redefined, 1 ignored).  
Scanning input file template_diplomarbeit.acn....done (18 entries accepted, 0 rejected).  
Sorting entries....done (75 comparisons).  
Generating output file template_diplomarbeit.acr....done (45 lines written, 0 warnings).  
Output written in template_diplomarbeit.acr.  
Transcript written in template_diplomarbeit.alg.  
makeindex  -s "template_diplomarbeit.ist" -t "template_diplomarbeit.glg" -o "template_diplomarbeit.gls" "template_diplomarbeit.glo"  
This is makeindex, version 2.15 [20-Nov-2007] (kpathsea + Thai support).  
Scanning style file ./template_diplomarbeit.ist...........................done   (27 attributes redefined, 1 ignored).  
Scanning input file template_diplomarbeit.glo...done (0 entries accepted, 0 rejected).  
Nothing written in template_diplomarbeit.gls.  
Transcript written in template_diplomarbeit.glg.

The result is no glossary or acronyms included anywhere.

However when I include the glossaries package without the acronym option (=acronyms are included in the glossary instead of giving them their own list) my list of acronyms shows up.

Best Answer

If I understand this correctly you still need to use the acronyms in the document with macros like \gls or \glslink. The entries in the acronyms file only define the acronyms, but only the one which are actually used in the document will be listed.

The idea behind this is that you can have a central acronyms definition file used by many different documents, but only the one you actually use in the current document are really displayed. Its the same for .bib file and BibTeX.

See the glossaries manual, especially section 1.4 Q10 on page 22, for more information.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] List of Acronyms is not displayed

Creating a list of acronyms (or glossary) is a three stage process (at least):

Typeset the document using LaTeX (or PDFLaTeX or XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX, as appropriate)
Run the makeglossaries Perl script or the makeglossaries-lite Lua script.
Typeset the document again.

(You may need to repeat step 3.) Every time you modify the document in a way that alters the list (for example, adding or deleting instances of \gls, or removing or inserting text that results in a change in the associated page numbers) then you need to repeat all three steps in order to update the list.

The command \makeglossaries in your document creates some glossary-related files (.glo or .acn) and each time you use commands like \gls an entry is added to the relevant file when the document is typeset (in step 1).

In step 2 a special indexing application is run that reads in those glossary-related files and writes another file (.gls or .acr) with the LaTeX code required to typeset the glossary or list of acronyms. This file is then input in your document in step 3.

Step 2 causes the most confusion as it requires running a command line script. However, most front-ends have a button or menu item you can click that will run the script for you. Most front-ends need to be configured to run makeglossaries or makeglossaries-lite. The following TeX.SE answers provide instructions for integrating makeglossaries on various front-ends.

TeXMaker: Using Texmaker with glossaries on Windows.
TeXworks: How to makeglossaries with TeXworks?
TeXShop: Adding a new engine in TeXShop.

For WinEdt, have a look at the comp.text.tex thread Executing Glossaries' makeindex from a WinEdt macro.

For other front-ends, see Incorporating makeglossaries or makeglossaries-lite or bib2gls into the document build.

In each of the above cases, you need to have Perl installed if you use makeglossaries (but not makeglossaries-lite) or if you want to use xindy instead of the default makeindex.

Since makeglossaries-lite is a Lua script, you should already have a Lua interpreter if you have a modern TeX distribution with LuaTeX. If you want to use makeglossaries-lite instead, you should just be able to replace all references to makeglossaries with makeglossaries-lite, although it has fewer options and doesn't provide diagnostic tools, so it's not as useful if things go wrong. (Note that makeglossaries-lite was added to glossaries version 4.16, so it won't be available for older versions.)

Another possibility if you are having difficulty with step 2 is to add the package option automake to glossaries:

\usepackage[automake]{glossaries}

(Introduced in glossaries version 4.08.) This will try to get TeX to run the external applications (step 3 is still required) but this won't work if the shell escape is disabled. This option also won't work with xindy in the restricted mode, since xindy isn't on the list of trusted applications.¹ With both xindy and automake, you would need the less secure unrestricted mode, which I don't recommend for security reasons.

Alternatively, there's a GUI approach that uses Java rather than Perl. See also What can interfere with glossaries to prevent printing?

¹This is the case with TeX Live. I don't know about MiKTeX.

[Tex/LaTex] My glossary won’t print

The PATH environment variable was missing the directory where the makeglossaries script is located. Once the directory is on the path, runscript.tlu should be able to find it.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] List of Acronyms is not displayed

[Tex/LaTex] My glossary won’t print

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