Glossaries: Make a glossary entry recognizable in printing

Question

How do you make it visible to the reader that the printed word/term is an entry in the glossary? In my PDF on the computer, I just see it because I use the hyperref package and there's a red box around it. But when printing it, there's just nothing that makes it visible to the user.

Is there a typographically good and common way of doing this?

Answer 1

I suggest to use italic, small caps or (asssuming the running text is typeset in serif) a sans serif font to indicate glossary entries resp. their first use in the text. You may also add a "Conventions" section to introduce the chosen typographic style to the reader.

Here's an example using the glossaries package:

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand*{\glossfirstformat}[1]{\textsf{#1}}

\usepackage{glossaries}
\makeglossaries

\renewcommand{\glsdisplayfirst}[4]{\glossfirstformat{#1#4}}
\renewcommand*{\glsnamefont}{\sffamily}

\newglossaryentry{electrolyte}{name=electrolyte,%
    description={solution able to conduct electric current}}

\textheight=160pt% just for the example

\begin{document}

\section*{Conventions}

A glossary entry is displayed \glossfirstformat{this way} the first time
it is used in the document.

\section{A section}

Some text about \gls{electrolyte}.

Some more text about \gls{electrolyte}.

\printglossaries

\end{document}

Answer 2

I think this is normally not done, sorry. I checked in a few (German) books with a glossary and none indicate references to the glossary.

If you still want to do it something subtle would be in order. Italic, bold, really small caps, or increasing the tracking (space between letters).

I'd probably go with increased tracking but this is probably not how professionals do it.