Glossaries Package: No long form the first time using an acronym

Question

Every time an acronym is used for the first time, the glossaries package (GP) includes the long form in the text. I don't want GP to do that (the abbreviations are clear/they can be looked up in the list).

I now solved it using \hphantom{all acronyms} somewhere on the first pages, but I bet there is a better solution to this.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[nopostdot,nogroupskip,nonumberlist]{glossaries}

\newacronym{OSA}{OSA}{Old South Arabian}
\newacronym{MSA}{MSA}{Modern South Aramaic}

\begin{document}

Some text about how interesting \gls{OSA} and \gls{MSA} are. And I want them ALWAYS to be abbreviated as \gls{OSA} and \gls{MSA}.

\end{document}

Answer 1

The glossaries documentation describes a “first use flag” which determines whether an acronym is being used for the first time or not (and consequently, whether to print the full acronym):

First use flag

A conditional that determines whether or not the entry has been used according to the rules of first use. Commands to unset or reset this conditional are described in Section 14.

Reading section 14, you can find commands like \glsunsetall and \glsreset which set this flag on and off. If you add the command

\glsunsetall[main]

to your preamble after the lines \newacronym{}{}{}, then acronyms are always shown in the short form, including on their first use.

If there is an unusual acronym (say XYZ) that does require the long form on its first use, then add the line

\glslocalreset{XYZ}

before you use it but after the \glsunsetall command, and that particular acronym will use the long form on first use.

Answer 2

\glsunsetall should mark them all used according to this answer. \glsunset{label} will do the same for a single acronym.

Answer 3

The extension package glossaries-extra provides an abbreviation style that does this:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[nopostdot,nogroupskip,nonumberlist]{glossaries-extra}

\setabbreviationstyle[acronym]{short}
\newacronym{OSA}{OSA}{Old South Arabian}
\newacronym{MSA}{MSA}{Modern South Aramaic}

\begin{document}

Some text about how interesting \gls{OSA} and \gls{MSA} are. And I
want them ALWAYS to be abbreviated as \gls{OSA} and \gls{MSA}.

\end{document}

This produces: