[Tex/LaTex] Two column glossary

glossariestwo-column

I'm having a problem similar to this: Two-column longtable or tabular. I want the same result — that is a two column glossary (ie a total of 4 columns) where a list of abbreviations and their descriptions wraps into a new, second column on the same page before continuing overleaf. However, I'm using the glossaries package. I've scanned the (very long) documentation and the only references to columns I can find is in the sense of adding more information (i.e. symbols) to a single glossary column. Does anyone know if there's a way to do what I'm asking?

By the by: I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make the page header for the glossary read in all-caps (like every other page header). Redefining the \glossarymark command as anything leaves me with a "CONTENTS" page header, flowing over from the ToC which is immediately before my glossary.

Edit: Not sure how much multiple questions are appreciated, but since these are all style related I have one more — is there a style for the glossary that is similar/identical to the TOC? All the styles that come with the package appear to suck… the closest to what I want (extremely simple) is the long style, but for some reason it is indented like 1.5 in and looks hideous.

Best Answer

Since I battled with this a while as well and I couldn't find any helpful discussions on the web, I just read carefully the manual! Maybe this is a feature newer than this topic, so it wasn't around the days the question was asked. But I like to provide an easy way to achieve multiple columns with the glossaries package so that others might find a solution faster.
One only needs the additional glossary-mcols package which provides exactly that.

\documentclass{scrreprt}

\usepackage{glossaries}
\usepackage{glossary-mcols}
\makeglossaries
\renewcommand*{\glspostdescription}{} % Removes dots at the end of each entry.

\begin{document}

% Some entries.
\newglossaryentry{glos:begin}{name=Begin, description={This is the beginning.}}
\newglossaryentry{glos:bold}{name=Bold, description=\nopostdesc}
\newglossaryentry{glos:bear}{name=Bear, description={A bear can make you run fast.}}\newglossaryentry{glos:chicken}{name=Chicken, description={Tasty...}}
\newglossaryentry{glos:elephant}{name=Elephant, description=\nopostdesc}
\newglossaryentry{glos:tantalos}{name=Tantalos, description={Just a random name.}}
\newglossaryentry{glos:zebra}{name=Zebra, description=\nopostdesc}

% Use the entries so that they show up in the glossary.
\gls{glos:begin}
\gls{glos:bold}
\gls{glos:bear}
\gls{glos:chicken}
\gls{glos:elephant}
\gls{glos:tantalos}
\gls{glos:zebra}

% Print the glossary with one of the mcol styles.
\printglossary[style=mcolindex, title=Index]

\end{document}

enter image description here

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Two-column longtable or tabular

longtable changes the output routine and so it does not work in two column modes. Try supertabular or xtab instead.

[Tex/LaTex] Glossary style long but without the indentation before the notations

You can simply increase the value of the length \glsdescwidth whose default value is 0.6\hsize. For example, add the line

\setlength{\glsdescwidth}{0.8\hsize}

in your preamble and you'll have

enter image description here

Complete code:

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{report}

\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage[acronym,toc,nopostdot]{glossaries}

\hypersetup{
  colorlinks   = true, %Colours links instead of ugly boxes
  urlcolor     = black, %Colour for external hyperlinks
  linkcolor    = black, %Colour of internal links
  citecolor   = black %Colour of citations
}

\newglossaryentry{resonance_angular_frequency}{
  name = $\omega_0$ ,
  description = [rad/s] - The angular frequency at which the imaginary part of an impedance is zero
}
\newglossaryentry{coil}{
  name = $W_i$ ,
  description = The coils in the magnetic circuit where 1 denotes the primary side and 2 denotes the secondary side.
}
\newglossaryentry{electric_field}{
  name = $\vec{E}$ ,
  description = [V/m] - Electric field
}
\newglossaryentry{magnetic_flux_density}{
  name = $\vec{B}$ ,
  description = [T] - Magnetic flux density
}

\makeglossaries

\setlength{\glsdescwidth}{0.8\hsize}

\begin{document}

\glsaddall

\printglossary[nonumberlist, style = long, title=Nomenclature]

\end{document}

Instead, if you want a column for units you can define a new glossary style mystyle

\newglossarystyle{mylong}{%
  \renewenvironment{theglossary}%
    {\begin{longtable}[l]{llp{\glsdescwidth}p{\glspagelistwidth}}}%
    {\end{longtable}}%
  \renewcommand*{\glossaryheader}{}%
  \renewcommand*{\glsgroupheading}[1]{}%
  \renewcommand{\glossentry}[2]{%
    \glsentryitem{##1}\glstarget{##1}{\glossentryname{##1}} &
    \glossentrysymbol{##1} &
    \glossentrydesc{##1} &
    ##2\tabularnewline
  }%
  \renewcommand{\subglossentry}[3]{%
     &
     \glssubentryitem{##2}%
     \glossentrysymbol{##2} &
     \glstarget{##2}{\strut}\glossentrydesc{##2} & ##3\tabularnewline
  }%
  \renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{%
    \ifglsnogroupskip\else & & &\tabularnewline\fi}%
}

and define the units as symbols as in

\newglossaryentry{magnetic_flux_density}{
  name = $\vec{B}$ ,
  description =  Magnetic flux density,
  symbol = [T]
}

The following MWE

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{report}

\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage[acronym,toc,nopostdot]{glossaries}

\hypersetup{
  colorlinks   = true, %Colours links instead of ugly boxes
  urlcolor     = black, %Colour for external hyperlinks
  linkcolor    = black, %Colour of internal links
  citecolor   = black %Colour of citations
}

\newglossaryentry{resonance_angular_frequency}{
  name = $\omega_0$ ,
  description = The angular frequency at which the imaginary part of an impedance is zero,
  symbol = [rad/s]
}
\newglossaryentry{coil}{
  name = $W_i$ ,
  description = The coils in the magnetic circuit where 1 denotes the primary side and 2 denotes the secondary side.
}
\newglossaryentry{electric_field}{
  name = $\vec{E}$ ,
  description = Electric field,
  symbol = [V/m]
}
\newglossaryentry{magnetic_flux_density}{
  name = $\vec{B}$ ,
  description =  Magnetic flux density,
  symbol = [T]
}

\makeglossaries

\newglossarystyle{mylong}{%
  \renewenvironment{theglossary}%
    {\begin{longtable}[l]{llp{\glsdescwidth}p{\glspagelistwidth}}}%
    {\end{longtable}}%
  \renewcommand*{\glossaryheader}{}%
  \renewcommand*{\glsgroupheading}[1]{}%
  \renewcommand{\glossentry}[2]{%
    \glsentryitem{##1}\glstarget{##1}{\glossentryname{##1}} &
    \glossentrysymbol{##1} &
    \glossentrydesc{##1} &
    ##2\tabularnewline
  }%
  \renewcommand{\subglossentry}[3]{%
     &
     \glssubentryitem{##2}%
     \glossentrysymbol{##2} &
     \glstarget{##2}{\strut}\glossentrydesc{##2} & ##3\tabularnewline
  }%
  \renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{%
    \ifglsnogroupskip\else & & &\tabularnewline\fi}%
}


\begin{document}

\glsaddall

\printglossary[nonumberlist, style = mylong, title=Nomenclature]

\end{document}

produces the following result:

enter image description here

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Two-column longtable or tabular

[Tex/LaTex] Glossary style long but without the indentation before the notations

Related Question