Increasing space between columns in a list of acronyms

Question

For my List of Acronyms page, I'd like the explanation of the acronym (i.e. "List Abbreviations Here" in the example below) to be a bit more on the right.

I'm using a thesis template, which obviously has class file (.cls) file attached to it and I don't want to fiddle too much with that although I guess that is how I will effect such a change. I dont want suggestions to install the nomenclature or glossary packages as I'm a bit too nervous to try out the packages, because every time I attempt to install a new package, everything else seems to be adversely affected.

Code from the .cls file:

 \newcommand\listsymbolname{List of Acronyms}
 \usepackage{longtable}
 \newcommand\listofsymbols[2]{
 \btypeout{\listsymbolname}
 \addtotoc{\listsymbolname}
\chapter*{\listsymbolname
  \@mkboth{
      \MakeUppercase\listsymbolname}{\MakeUppercase\listsymbolname}}
\begin{longtable}[l]{#1}#2\end{longtable}\par
\cleardoublepage

Code from .tex file:

\setstretch{1.5}  % Set the line spacing to 1.5, this makes the following tables easier to read
\clearpage  % Start a new page
\lhead{\emph{List of Acronyms}}  % Set the left side page header to "Abbreviations"
\listofsymbols{ll}  % Include a list of Abbreviations (a table of two columns)
{
\textbf{LAH} & \textbf{L}ist \textbf{A}bbreviations \textbf{H}ere \\
}

It happens not to matter here, but in general you should provide a minimal working example. For some questions the answers will depend on your class, for example, and we don't have it. — Gilles 'SO- stop being evil', Jan 03 '14 at 13:19
Yes, I contemplated providing a MWE here but as you pointed out, not sure how I could have provided a MWE in this instance! :) — The Statistician Magician, Jan 03 '14 at 13:33

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 03 '14 at 13:14

5

Try changing the first argument of \listofsymbols in the .tex file to

\listofsymbols{l @{\hspace{1cm}} l}
{
 \textbf{LAH} & \textbf{L}ist \textbf{A}bbreviations \textbf{H}ere \\
}

You can modify the length 1cm to whatever suits your needs.

answered Jan 03 '14 at 13:14

Torbjørn T.

206,688

score 4 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

You can use the @ table preamble specifier to replace the inter-column space by spacing or other commands of your choosing. Instead of \listofsymbols{ll}, use e.g.

\listofsymbols{l@{\hspace{3\tabcolsep}}l}

You may want to use the p specifier instead of l for the right column, so as to allow expansions to be formatted as a multi-line paragraph. This requires hard-coding the width of the column. For a one-time thing, adjust the width manually so that the table is just wide enough to fit on the page.

\listofsymbols{l@{\hspace{3\tabcolsep}}p{0.9\textwidth}}

The tabularx package provides tables where you can use the X specifier instead of l to get a column that will be formatted as a multi-line paragraph and that will use whatever horizontal space it can grab. Unfortunately, it is not completely straightforward to combine longtable and tabularx functionality; see Is it possible to use tabularx inside a longtable environment?

Increasing space between columns in a list of acronyms

2 Answers2