Acronym package - merge first occurence of acronym with following citation/parentheses

Question

I am using the acronym package. It happens often in my texts that I have something like:

1. We first use a \ac{NA} \citep{exocom2019} and then the text continues.

We learn a \ac{VL} (i.e., something we did not know before).

What will look like the following in a text.

1. We first use a New Acronym (NA) (Exocom, 2019) and then the text continues.

2. We learn a Valuable Lesson (VL) (i.e., something we did not know before).

Is there a way in the acronym package to do this so that I can merge the parentheses? In a way the output becomes something like:

1. We first use a New Acronym (NA; Exocom, 2019) and then the text continues.

2. We learn a Valuable Lesson (VL; i.e., something we did not know before).

In case somebody has another good solution or workaround to the problem, please let me know.

PS: I tried to update the examples and add code as asked. I hope that helps.

PPS: An MWE

--- mwe.tex ---

\documentclass[12pt]{book}
\usepackage[printonlyused]{acronym} % used for the nice acronyms
\usepackage[style=authoryear-comp,citestyle=authoryear,natbib=true,backend=bibtex,maxbibnames=99,maxcitenames=1]{biblatex} %NEW BIB: needed so that bibentry works
\bibliography{mweBib}
\begin{document}
\begin{acronym}
    \acro{NA}{New Acronym} 
    \acro{VL}{Valuable Lesson} 
\end{acronym}

We first use a \ac{NA} \citep{exocom2019} and then the text continues.

We learn a \ac{VL} (i.e., something we did not know before).


\end{document}

--- mweBib.bib ---

@inproceedings{exocom2019,
  title={My title},
  author={Exocom},
  year={2019},
  booktitle = {Proc. Stackexchange}
}

--- command ---

latexmk -pvc mwe.tex

Answer 1

This is doable with the acro package:

• The citation is already built in by setting the option cite/group = true and adding the citation to the definition of the acronym.

• A one-time addition is possible by redefining the default template…

    \RenewAcroTemplate{long-short}{%
      \acroiffirstTF{%
        \acrowrite{long}%
        \acspace(%
          \acroifT{foreign}{\acrowrite{foreign}, }%
          \acrowrite{short}%
          \acroifT{alt}{ \acrotranslate{or} \acrowrite{alt}}%
          \acaddition % <<< new
          \acrogroupcite
        )%
      }{%
        \acrowrite{short}%
        \acaddition % <<< new
      }%
    }
  

  …and the command \ac:

    \providecommand\acaddition{}
    \RenewAcroCommand\ac{mo}{%
      \IfNoValueF{#2}{\def\acaddition{, #2}}%
      \UseAcroTemplate{first}{#1}%
    }
  

  Commands defined by \NewAcroCommand and friends are local to a group so we don't need to worry about the definition of \acaddition afterwards.

A complete example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[style=authoryear-comp,citestyle=authoryear]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@inproceedings{exocom2019,
  title={My title},
  author={Exocom},
  year={2019},
  booktitle = {Proc. Stackexchange}
}
\end{filecontents}
\usepackage{acro}
\RenewAcroTemplate{long-short}{%
  \acroiffirstTF{%
    \acrowrite{long}%
    \acspace(%
      \acroifT{foreign}{\acrowrite{foreign}, }%
      \acrowrite{short}%
      \acroifT{alt}{ \acrotranslate{or} \acrowrite{alt}}%
      \acaddition % <<< new
      \acrogroupcite
    )%
  }{%
    \acrowrite{short}%
    \acaddition % <<< new
  }%
}
\providecommand\acaddition{}
\RenewAcroCommand\ac{mo}{%
  \IfNoValueF{#2}{\def\acaddition{, #2}}%
  \UseAcroTemplate{first}{#1}%
}
\acsetup{
  cite/group = true
}
\DeclareAcronym{NA}{
  short = NA ,
  long = New Acronym ,
  cite = exocom2019
}
\DeclareAcronym{VL}{
  short = VL ,
  long = Valuable Lesson
}
\begin{document}
\begin{enumerate}
  \item We first use a \ac{NA} and then the text continues.
  \item We learn a \ac{VL}[i.e., something we did not know before].
\end{enumerate}
\end{document}