Recipe: Using macros to create lists of abbreviations for table footnotes

6/3/2026

Recipe: Using macros to create lists of abbreviations for table footnotes

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In a previous post, I explained how to create a list of abbreviations in a table to check against the list in the footnotes. Sometimes, the tables in the documents I'm sent don't have lists of the abbreviations used and their definitions and I have to create that list myself. This post explains how I do this.

Ingredients

You will need:

a table that needs a list of abbreviations and definitions
the table of abbreviations that you created using the method described in: Recipe: Using macros to check abbreviation lists in table footnotes*
a macro that takes the information in that table and turns it into a list – the macro I use for this is called AcronymTableToList and you can find it here
Paul Beverley's multiswitch macro – which you can find here
a "switch" document that listing abbreviations and their definitions*

*Or just by using the AcronymAlyse macro.
**The tables that I edit usually come in large documents which have abbreviation lists at the beginning. I create my "switch" document by copying this list into a new document, and formatting it as required. You can find the instructions for the format the "switch" document the multiswitch macro uses here.

Remember to be careful when installing other people's macros onto your system!

Method

We need to generate a list of abbreviations and definitions for this table:

In a previous post, I described how to generate table which lists the abbreviations in a table. You will need to start with that table. My table looked like this:

Then you need to select the table and run the AcronymTableToList macro. After a few steps, this macro creates a list of abbreviations which looks something like this:

You'll notice that it's quite a strange looking list and with all the abbreviations duplicated. This is because I then use the multiswitch macro and my "switch" document to change the second abbreviation into the definition.

This is part of my switch document: the original text is listed and the text that you want to switch it to is listed underneath:

I run the multiswitch macro using a keyboard shortcut, so, as long as all the definitions are all present in my switch document, it's pretty quick to add the definitions to the list generated by the AcronymTableToList macro.

This is what the list looks like after a few clicks:

Better already!

If you look closely at the original list generated by the macro, there are some "abbreviations" that don't need to be defined, so you might have to do a little tidying up as you go along.

You will probably also need to delete some stray punctuation at the end of the list and add a full stop – but most of the hard work has been done and you will soon be able to add your list of abbreviations and their definitions to your table legend.

Author

Andrea at Yours Truleigh Editing.
www.yourstruleighediting.com