Upgrading from the glossary package to the glossaries package
Nicola L.C. Talbot
2024-04-03

Abstract
The purpose of this document is to provide advice if you want to convert a LaTeX document from using the obsolete glossary package to the replacement glossaries package. The final version of the glossary package is 2.4 (2006-07-20). It was made obsolete after the release of glossaries v1.0 (2007-05-16).

For the main glossaries user guide, see glossaries-user.pdf.

texdoc glossaries-user
For a shorter guide for beginners, see glossariesbegin.pdf.
texdoc glossariesbegin

1. Why the Need for a New Package?

The glossary package started out as an example in a tutorial, but I decided that I may as well package it up and upload it to CTAN. Unfortunately it was fairly rigid and unable to adapt well to the wide variation in glossary styles. Users began making requests for enhancements, but with each enhancement the code became more complicated and bugs crept in. Each fix in one place seemed to cause another problem elsewhere. In the end, it was taking up too much of my time to maintain, so I decided to replace it with a much better designed package. With the new glossaries package:

2. Package Options

When converting a document that currently uses the obsolete glossary package to the replacement glossaries package, it should be fairly obvious that the first thing you need to do is replace \usepackage{glossary} with \usepackage{glossaries}, however some of the package options are different, so you may need to change those as well. Table 1 shows the mappings from the glossary to the glossaries package options.

Table 1: Mappings from glossary to glossaries package options
glossary option glossaries option
style=list style=list
style=altlist style=altlist
style=long,header=none,border=none,cols=2 style=long
style=long,header=plain,border=none,cols=2 style=longheader
style=long,header=none,border=plain,cols=2 style=longborder
style=long,header=plain,border=plain,cols=2 style=longheaderborder
style=long,header=none,border=none,cols=3 style=long3col
style=long,header=plain,border=none,cols=3 style=long3colheader
style=long,header=none,border=plain,cols=3 style=long3colborder
style=long,header=plain,border=plain,cols=3 style=long3colheaderborder
style=super,header=none,border=none,cols=2 style=super
style=super,header=plain,border=none,cols=2 style=superheader
style=super,header=none,border=plain,cols=2 style=superborder
style=super,header=plain,border=plain,cols=2 style=superheaderborder
style=super,header=none,border=none,cols=3 style=super3col
style=super,header=plain,border=none,cols=3 style=super3colheader
style=super,header=none,border=plain,cols=3 style=super3colborder
style=super,header=plain,border=plain,cols=3 style=super3colheaderborder
number=none nonumberlist
number=counter name counter=counter name
toc toc
hypertoc toc
hyper no corresponding option
section=true section
section=false no corresponding option
acronym acronym
global no corresponding option

3. Defining new glossary types

If you have created new glossary types, you will need to replace all instances of

glossary.sty
\newglossarytype[log-ext]{type}{out-ext}{in-ext}[old style list]
\newcommand{typename}{title}
with
glossaries.sty
\newglossary[log-ext]{type}{out-ext}{in-ext}{title}
in the preamble, and, if the new glossary requires a different style to the main (default) glossary, you will also need to put
glossaries.sty
\setglossarystyle{new-style}
immediately before the glossary is displayed, or you can specify the style when you display the glossary using \printglossary (see below).

The old style list optional argument can be converted to new-style using the same mapping given in Table 1.

For example, if your document contains the following:

glossary.sty
\newglossarytype[nlg]{notation}{not}{ntn}[style=long,header] \newcommand{\notationname}{Index of Notation}
You will need to replace the above two lines with:
glossaries.sty
\newglossary[nlg]{notation}{not}{ntn}{Index of Notation}
in the preamble and set the style to longheader with
glossaries.sty
\setglossarystyle{longheader}
prior to displaying this glossary. Alternatively, you can specify the style using style package option (which makes it the default style) or the style key in the optional argument of \printglossary. For example:
glossaries.sty
\printglossary[type=notation,style=longheader]

Note that the glossary title is no longer specified using \glossary-typename (except for \glossaryname and \acronymname) but is instead specified in the title argument of \newglossary. The short title which is specified in the glossary package by the command \shortglossary-typename is now specified using the toctitle key in the optional argument to \printglossary.

4. \makeglossary-type

All instances of \makeglossary-type (e.g. \makeglossary and \makeacronym) should be replaced by the single command \makeglossaries. For example, if your document contained the following:

glossary.sty
\makeglossary \makeacronym
then you should replace both lines with the single line:
glossaries.sty
\makeglossaries

5. Storing glossary information

With the old glossary package you could optionally store glossary information for later use, or you could simply use \glossary whenever you wanted to add information to the glossary. With the new glossaries package, the latter option is no longer available. (This is mainly because having a key value list in \glossary caused problems, but it also helps consistency.) If you have stored all the glossary information using \storeglosentry, then you will need to convert these commands into the equivalent \newglossaryentry. If you have only used \glossary, then see §6.4.

Substitute all instances of

glossary.sty
\storeglosentry{label}{key=value list}
with
glossaries.sty
\newglossaryentry{label}{key=value list}
This should be fairly easy to do using the search and replace facility in your editor (but see notes below).

If you have used the optional argument of \storeglosentry (i.e. you have multiple glossaries) then you will need to substitute

glossary.sty
\storeglosentry[gls-type]{label}{key=value list}
with
glossaries.sty
\newglossaryentry{label}{key=value list,type={gls-type}}

The glossary entry information key=value list may also need changing. If key=value list contains any of makeindex’s special characters (i.e. @ ! " or |) then they should no longer be escaped with " since the glossaries package deals with these characters internally. For example, if your document contains the following:

glossary.sty
\storeglosentry{card}{name={$"|\mathcal{S}"|$}, description={The cardinality of the set $\mathcal{S}$}}
then you will need to replace it with:
glossaries.sty
\newglossaryentry{card}{name={$|\mathcal{S}|$}, description={The cardinality of the set $\mathcal{S}$}}

The number key available in \storeglosentry should be replaced with the counter key in \newglossaryentry. The sort key in \storeglosentry is also called sort in \newglossaryentry.

The \storeglosentry format key doesn’t have a counterpart in \newglossaryentry. You can, however, specify the format in the optional argument of commands like \gls or \glsadd or you can change the default format by redefining \glsnumberformat.

6. Adding an entry to the glossary

The glossary package provided two basic means to add information to the glossary: firstly, the term was defined using \storeglosentry and the entries for that term were added using \useglosentry, \useGlosentry and \gls. Secondly, the term was added to the glossary using \glossary. This second approach is unavailable with the glossaries package, since all entries must be defined before they can be indexed.

6.1. \useglosentry

The glossary package allows you to add information to the glossary for a predefined term without producing any text in the document using

glossary.sty
\useglosentry[old options]{label}
Any occurrences of this command will need to be replaced with
glossaries.sty
\glsadd[new options]{label}
The format key in old options is also called format in new options. However the optdefnumber={counter-name} key in old options should be replaced with optdefcounter=counter-name in new options.

6.2. \useGlosentry

The glossary package allows you to add information to the glossary for a predefined term with the given text using

glossary.sty
\useGlosentry[old options]{label}{text}
Any occurrences of this command will need to be replaced with
glossaries.sty
\glslink[new options]{label}{text}
The mapping from old options to new options is the same as that given §6.1.

6.3. \gls

The glossary defines:

glossary.sty
\gls (glossary.sty)[options]{label}
The glossaries package defines a command with the same name, but be aware that it has a final optional argument:
glossaries.sty
\gls (glossaries.sty)[options]{label}[insert]
In this case, the only thing you need to change is the number key in the optional argument to counter. The insert optional argument in the new form of \gls can be used to insert text into the automatically generated text, which will put it inside the hyperlink (if hyperlinks are supported).

6.4. \glossary

When using the glossaries package, you should not use \glossary. This is because the appropriate indexing syntax (including escaping any of makeindex’s or xindy’s special characters) is generated when the entry is defined. This reduces overall complexity as it no longer needs to be performed every time an entry is indexed. By placing the glossary definitions within the preamble, it also reduces the chance that the indexing special character may have their category code changed, which can cause interference.

If, with the old package, you have opted to explicitly use \glossary instead of storing the glossary information with \storeglosentry, then converting from glossary to glossaries will be more time-consuming, although in the end, I hope you will see the benefits. From the user’s point of view, using \glossary throughout the document is time consuming, and if you use it more than once for the same term, there’s a chance extra spaces may creep in which will cause makeindex to treat the two entries as different terms, even though they look the same in the document. If you have used \glossary with the old glossary package, you will instead need to define the relevant glossary terms using \newglossaryentry and reference the terms using \glsadd, \glslink, \gls etc.

If you don’t like the idea of continually scrolling back to the preamble to type all your \newglossaryentry commands, you may prefer to create a new file, in which to store all these commands, and then input that file in your document’s preamble. Most text editors and front-ends allow you to have multiple files open, and you can tab back and forth between them.

7. Acronyms

In the glossary package, acronyms were treated differently to glossary entries. This resulted in inconsistencies and sprawling unmaintainable code. The new glossaries package treats acronyms in exactly the same way as normal glossary terms.

Both packages provide \newacronym, but the syntax is different. With the glossary package, the syntax is:

glossary.sty
\newacronym (glossary.sty)[cmd-name]{acronym}{long}{old-options}
With the glossaries package, the default definition of:
glossaries.sty
\newacronym (glossaries.sty)[options]{label}{abbrv}{long}
is a shortcut for:
glossaries.sty
\newglossaryentry{label}{type=\acronymtype, name={abbrv}, description={long}, text={abbrv}, first={long (abbrv)}, plural={abbrvs}, firstplural={longs (abbrvs)}, options}
(Note that this shortcut default is an older method of defining acronyms. If you use \setacronymstyle introduced to glossaries v4.02, then a more flexible method is adopted.)

This is different to the glossary package which set the name key to long (abbrv) and allowed you to set a description using the description key. If you still want to do this, you can use one of the description styles, such as long-short-desc, and use the description key in the optional argument of \newacronym.

For example, if your document originally had the following:

glossary.sty
\newacronym{SVM}{Support Vector Machine}{description={Statistical pattern recognition technique}}
Then you would need to first set the style:
glossaries.sty
\setacronymstyle{long-short-desc}
and change the acronym definition to:
glossaries.sty
\newacronym[description={Statistical pattern recognition technique}]{svm}{SVM}{Support Vector Machine}
You can then reference the acronym using any of the new referencing commands, such as \gls or \glsadd.

With the old glossary package, when you defined an acronym, it also defined a command \acr-name which could be used to display the acronym in the text. So the above SVM example would create the command \SVM with the old package. In the new glossaries package, the acronyms are just another type of glossary entry, so they are displayed using \gls{label}. Therefore, in the above example, you will also need to replace all occurrences of \SVM with \gls{svm}.

If you have used \useacronym instead of \acr-name, then you will need to replace all occurrences of

glossary.sty
\useacronym[insert]{acr-name}
with
glossaries.sty
\gls{label}[insert]
Note that the starred versions of \useacronym and \acr-name (which make the first letter uppercase) should be replaced with \Gls{label}.

Alternatively (as from v1.18 of the glossaries package), you can use \oldacronym which uses the same syntax as the old glossary package’s \newacronym and also defines \acr-name. For example, if your document originally had the following:

glossary.sty
\newacronym{SVM}{Support Vector Machine}{description={Statistical pattern recognition technique}}
then you can change this to:
glossaries.sty
\oldacronym{SVM}{Support Vector Machine}{description={Statistical pattern recognition technique}}
You can then continue to use \SVM. However, remember that LaTeX generally ignores spaces after command names that consist of alphabetical characters. You will therefore need to force a space after \acr-name, unless you also load the xspace package. (See the “Acronyms” of the glossaries documentation for further details.) Note that \oldacronym uses its first argument to define the acronym’s label (as used by commands like \gls), so in the above example, with the new glossaries package, \SVM becomes a shortcut for \gls{SVM} and \SVM* becomes a shortcut for \Gls{SVM}.

7.1. \acrln and \acrsh

In the glossary package, it is possible to produce the long and short forms of an acronym without adding an entry to the glossary using \acrln and \acrsh. With the glossaries package (provided you defined the acronym using \newacronym or \oldacronym and provided you haven’t redefined \newacronym) you can replace

glossary.sty
\acrsh{acr-name}
with
glossaries.sty
\acrshort{label}
and you can replace
glossary.sty
\acrln{acr-name}
with
glossaries.sty
\acrlong{label}
The glossaries package also provides the related commands \acrshortpl (plural short form) and \acrlongpl (plural long form) as well as upper case variations. If you use the glossaries “shortcuts” package option, you can use \acs in place of \acrshort and \acl in place of \acrlong.

See the “Acronyms” of the glossaries manual for further details of how to use these commands.

7.2. \ifacronymfirstuse

The glossary package command

glossary.sty
\ifacronymfirstuse{acr-name}{not used text}{has been used text}
can be replaced by the glossaries command:
glossaries.sty
\ifglsused{label}{has been used text}{not used text}
Note that \ifglsused evaluates the opposite condition to that of \ifacronymfirstuse which is why the last two arguments have been reversed.

7.3. \resetacronym and \unsetacronym

The glossary package allows you to reset and unset the acronym flag which is used to determine whether the acronym has been used in the document. The glossaries package also provides a means to do this on either a local or a global level. To reset an acronym, you will need to replace:

glossary.sty
\resetacronym{acr-name}
with either
glossaries.sty
\glsreset{label}
or
glossaries.sty
\glslocalreset{label}

To unset an acronym, you will need to replace:

glossary.sty
\unsetacronym{acr-name}
with either
glossaries.sty
\glsunset{label}
or
glossaries.sty
\glslocalunset{label}

To reset all acronyms, you will need to replace:

glossary.sty
\resetallacronyms
with
glossaries.sty
\glsresetall[\acronymtype]
or
glossaries.sty
\glslocalresetall[\acronymtype]
To unset all acronyms, you will need to replace:
glossary.sty
\unsetallacronyms
with
glossaries.sty
\glsunsetall[\acronymtype]
or
glossaries.sty
\glslocalunsetall[\acronymtype]

8. Displaying the glossary

The glossary package provides the command \printglossary (or \printtype for other glossary types) which can be used to print individual glossaries. The glossaries package provides the command \printglossaries which will print all the glossaries which have been defined, or \printglossary (glossaries.sty)[options] to print individual glossaries. So if you just have \printglossary, then you can leave it as it is, but if you have, say:

glossary.sty
\printglossary \printglossary[acronym]
or
glossary.sty
\printglossary \printacronym*
then you will need to replace this with either
glossaries.sty
\printglossaries
or
glossaries.sty
\printglossary \printglossary[type=\acronymtype]

The glossary package allows you to specify a short title (for the table of contents and page header) by defining a command of the form \shortglossary-typename. The glossaries package doesn’t do this, but instead provides the toctitle key which can be used in the optional argument to \printglossary. For example, if you have created a new glossary type called notation, and you had defined

glossary.sty
\newcommand{\shortnotationname}{Notation}
then you would need to use the toctitle key:
glossaries.sty
\printglossary[type=notation,toctitle=Notation]
The glossaries package will ignore \shortnotationname, so unless you have used it elsewhere in the document, you may as well remove the definition.

9. Processing Your Document

If you convert your document from using the glossary package to the glossaries package, you will need to delete any of the additional files, such as the glo file, that were created by the glossary package, as the glossaries package uses a different format. Remember also, that if you used the makeglos Perl script, you will need to use the makeglossaries Perl script instead. As from v1.17, the glossaries package can be used with either makeindex or xindy. Since xindy was designed to be multilingual, the new glossaries package is a much better option for non-English documents. If you use the extension package, glossaries-extra, then you also have the option of using bib2gls instead (which also provides multilingual support).

For further information on using makeglossaries, makeindex or xindy to create your glossaries, see the “Generating the Associated Glossary Files” section of the glossaries documentation.

10. Troubleshooting

Please check the FAQ for the glossaries package if you have any problems.

Symbols

〉_
A command-line application invocation that needs to be entered into a terminal or command prompt.

Index

Symbols A B C F G I M N O P R S T U X

Symbols

! 6

" 67
| 67
@ 6

A

\acl 12
\acr-name 1011
\acrlongpl 12
acronym Table 1
\acronymname 5
\acronymtype 9, 1314
\acrshortpl 12
\acs 12

B

bib2gls 15

C

counter Table 1

F

file formats
glo 15

G

glossaries-extra package 15
\glossary 69
\glossary-typename 5
glossary styles
long Table 1
long3col Table 1
long3colborder Table 1
long3colheader Table 1
long3colheaderborder Table 1
longborder Table 1
longheader Table 1; 5
longheaderborder Table 1
super Table 1
super3col Table 1
super3colborder Table 1
super3colheader Table 1
super3colheaderborder Table 1
superborder Table 1
superheader Table 1
superheaderborder Table 1
\glossaryname 5
\Gls 11
format 7
\glslocalresetall 13
\glslocalunsetall 14
\glsnumberformat 7
\glsresetall 13
\glsunsetall 14

I

M

\makeacronym 5
makeglos 15
\makeglossaries 56
makeglossaries 15
\makeglossary 5
\makeglossary-type 5
makeindex 2, 3, 6, 8, 915

N

counter 7
description 7, 911
first 9
firstplural 9
name 79
plural 9
sort 7
text 9
type 6
nonumberlist Table 1

O

\oldacronym 11

P

\printacronym 14
\printglossaries 14
style 5
toctitle 5, 1415
type 515
\printglossary (glossary.sty) 14
\printtype 14

R

S

section Table 1
\setacronymstyle 10
long-short-desc 10
\shortglossary-typename 514
description 7, 1011
format 7
name 710
number 7
sort 7
style Table 1; 5

T

U

format 7

X

xindy 2, 815
xspace package 11
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