[Tex/LaTex] Use of starred \ac commands in the acronym package

acronyms

I'm trying to use the starred commands for the acronym package, i.e. \ac*, \acs*, \acl*, etc.

But, I can't seem to get the package not to set the AC@used flag (which I believe is used by the acronym package to track commands that are used in the document.

Below is a minimum working example:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{acronym}
\newacro{TMN}{This Means Nothing}

\begin{document}

First use works as intended:

\ac*{TMN}

But the acronym is still marked as used:

\ac*{TMN}

\end{document}

The end result is something like this:

First use works as intended:

This Means Nothing (TMN)

But the acronym is still marked as used:

TMN

Any ideas? Or should I switch to the glossaries package?

Best Answer

It appears as we have both misinterpreted the meaning of \ac* as I too interpreted the documentation the same way. As per @GonzaloMedina's comment:

The starred versions only control if the acronym should appear in the acronyms list or not; the starred versions do not control how the acronym appears in the body of the document.

However, one way to get the desired behavior is to redefine \@ac which is copied from the acronym package, and insert a \AC@reset{#1} call in three places which seems to produce the desired results:

enter image description here

Note that you could use \acf to always get the full name as well.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{acronym}

\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\@ac}[1]{%
  \ifAC@dua
     \ifAC@starred\acl*{#1}\AC@reset{#1}\else\acl{#1}\fi%
  \else
     \expandafter\ifx\csname ac@#1\endcsname\AC@used%
     \ifAC@starred\acs*{#1}\AC@reset{#1}\else\acs{#1}\fi%
   \else
     \ifAC@starred\acf*{#1}\AC@reset{#1}\else\acf{#1}\fi%
   \fi
  \fi}
\makeatother

\newacro{TMN}{This Means Nothing}
\newacro{DMS}{Does Means Something}

\begin{document}
1st use works as intended: \ac*{TMN}\par
2nd use works as intended: \ac{TMN}\par
3nd use works as intended: \ac{TMN}\par
\medskip
1st use works as intended: \ac{DMS}\par
2nd use works as intended: \ac{DMS}\par
\end{document}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Manually set first-use flag using glossaries

The package glossaries defines a boolean flag for every entry. If you call \ac the boolean flag is set to true. That means next time you know that the entry was used.

To set this flag manual the package provides the command \glsunset.

The documentation describes the command at page 105 (glossaries-user.pdf).

When using \gls, \glspl and their uppercase variants it is possible that you may want to use the value given by the first key, even though you have already used the glossary entry. Conversely, you may want to use the value given by the text key, even though you haven’t used the glossary entry. The former can be achieved by one of the following commands:

...

while the latter can be achieved by one of the following commands:
\glsunset{⟨label⟩}

Related to your example do:

\documentclass{scrreprt}

\usepackage[xindy, shortcuts]{glossaries}

\newacronym{TA}{TA}{Test Acronym}
    \makeglossaries

\begin{document}

\printglossary[type=\acronymtype]

\begin{description}
    \item[\acf{TA}\glsunset{TA}] This is an explanation of the item…
         The first use flag should be set after this!
         But it does!, and will display Test Acronym (TA) again… Which is not intended!
\end{description}

When using \ac{TA} here like this, it should not reproduce the entire entry again.

\printglossary

\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] Removing hyperref for acronym starred commands

For starred versions of its commands acronym calls \AC@starredtrue. We can use this to redefine \AC@hyperlink to only produce a hyperlink if a non-starred version is used. Without hyperref \AC@hyperlink essentially is the same as \@secondoftwo and with hyperref it is \let to \hyperlink at begin document. This means the redefinition should be done with the \AtBeginDocument hook.

The following definition lets \AC@hyperlink use \@secondoftwo in starred versions and \hyperlink in the non-starred versions.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[printonlyused]{acronym}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\makeatletter
\AtBeginDocument{%
  \renewcommand*\AC@hyperlink{%
    \ifAC@starred
      \expandafter\@secondoftwo
    \else
      \expandafter\hyperlink
    \fi
  }%
}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
the initial page

\newpage
the acronym page

\begin{acronym}
  \acro{AAA}{Aaa Abb Acc}
  \acro{TMN}{This Means Nothing}
\end{acronym}

\newpage
\ac{AAA}
\ac*{TMN}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Manually set first-use flag using glossaries

[Tex/LaTex] Removing hyperref for acronym starred commands

Related Question