Tips for expanding glossary (with Latex macros)

[sbreitbart-NOAA]

Feel free to contribute resources, tips, or opinions on this idea.

Our first version of a glossary contains three sets of brackets:

{short form}{long form}{meaning}

@DHennen1 suggested we could add more brackets (to total 4, 5, 6 sets) that would enhance screen reader accuracy by, e.g., providing pronunciations or meanings with zero acronyms inside the meaning.

Tagging @kellijohnson-NOAA for her experience with {glossaries}.

[kellijohnson-NOAA]

{glossaries} itself does not have the functionality to allow for phonetic pronunciation but you can use {tipa}, another package on CTAN, to support International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) typesetting, e.g., LaTeX is written as \protect\textipa{<lA>tE<x>} or \protect\textipa{<le>tE<x>}. This information can be included in the description field within a glossary entry or you can create your own field to include this information. You would then need a macro or some other code to allow the screen reader to have access to the phonetic pronunciation. That latter part, I am not familiar with writing the code but I am sure between @DHennen1's example and a few colleagues that I have who are experts in LaTeX that we could figure it out.

[kellijohnson-NOAA]

I suggest describing the current three sets of brackets differently than {short form}{long form}{meaning}, which is the above description. The first bracket is a "label" or "key", it is what the user places in their document to look up the term in the glossary file. The second bracket is the "short form" or the "acronym". The third bracket is the "long form". A "description" or meaning can actually go inside of the third bracket if you use a list structure inside this bracket to provide multiple types of information.

[sbreitbart-NOAA]

Thanks for suggesting how to explain this more clearly, Kelli! Once merged into main, our updated vignette will be clearer for users.