#### 14.7.3 Configuring use of abbreviations for glossary terms

Your company style guide might require certain terms to be spelled out in full the first time they appear in your document, after which you can use an abbreviation or acronym. This can present some challenges:

- If such a term is included in a glossary, you must be able to represent the relationship between either form of the term and its definition.
- In a reusable-topic-based writing environment there is no way to know which will be the first use of a term.
- The first-use rule can vary depending on the context, on the type of output, and other possible factors.

In DITA 1.2 and later versions, you can use the <abbreviated-form> element to represent every reference to a glossary term.

In this section:

§14.7.3.1 Specifying first-use rules for glossary-term abbreviations

§14.7.3.2 Overriding first-use rules for abbreviations

§14.7.3.3 Specifying @class for the abbreviated-form element

§14.7.3.4 Formatting output for the abbreviated-form element

Previous Topic: 14.7.2 Specifying output formats for the glossary

Next Topic: 14.7.3.1 Specifying first-use rules for glossary-term abbreviations

Parent Topic: 14.7 Producing a glossary

Sibling Topics:

14.7.1 Specifying file name and title for the glossary

14.7.2 Specifying output formats for the glossary