Creating Glossaries

Glossaries enable you to define and easily implement a set of terms to use in your documentation.

Glossary Term

You use the term element to link to the glossary entry topic. If you hover over the term, a tooltip with the term definition appears.

If you click the term element that links to the glossary entry topic, you open the glossary entry topic.

Using glossary terms in your topics requires initial configuration.

Create glossary terms. See Create Glossary Entry Topics.
Create a map and add the glossary entry topics to the map. See Create a Glossary Map.

Tip: We recommend having a global, reusable glossary map that contains all your glossary entry topics, or having glossary maps for major product lines. This makes using the glossary terms in your publications easier because they're all bundled together in a glossary map that can be easily added to publications where the glossary terms are used.
Add the glossary map to the shared map. See Add a Glossary Map to the Shared Map.

Tip: We recommend having your glossary map in a shared map to help safeguard against unresolved links during publish.
Add the shared map to the deliverable map. See Add the Shared Map to a Deliverable Map.

Insert glossary terms into topics. See Insert a Glossary Term to a Topic.

Use the glossary entry topic to define individual glossary terms and their definitions.

In the content library, navigate to a folder and click Create New.
Select Glossary Entry.
Fill in the Title field.
The title of the glossary entry topic is used as the glossary term.
Click Create & Edit.
Define the glossary term and its terminology information by doing the following:
1. In the Definition field, enter a definition for the term.
2. Optional: Enter additional information about the glossary term such as an abbreviation, acronyms, synonyms, etc.
If needed, repeat the procedure for each glossary term.

Create a map that contains a collection of glossary terms.

Add your glossary map to a shared warehouse map for easy reuse.

Tip: We recommend having your glossary map in a shared map to help safeguard against unresolved links during publish.

In the content library right-click the shared map and select Dock.
In the content library, navigate to the glossary map you want to add to the shared map.
Drag and drop the glossary map into the Map Editor and click Insert if needed.

Ensure that the shared map is added to a deliverable map.

In the content library, right-click the deliverable map and select Dock.
In the content library, navigate to the shared map you want to add to the deliverable map.
Drag and drop the shared map into the deliverable map and click Insert if needed.
Hover-over the shared map and click the wrench icon.
From the processing-role drop-down menu, select resource-only.

You add a glossary term to a topic by key-referencing glossary entry topics.

Create a glossary of terms. See Create a Glossary.

In the content library, double-click a topic.
Place your cursor where you want to insert a glossary term.
Press Shift > Cmd > K (Mac) or Shift > Ctrl > K (Windows).
In the dialog, do the following:
1. Optional: Start typing the glossary key name.
  Typing the glossary key name makes the keys list shorter.
2. In the keys list, double-click the relevant glossary key name.