Appendix in LaTeX

Question

I have the following document:

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper,twoside]{book}
 \usepackage[spanish,activeacute]{babel}
 \usepackage[titletoc]{appendix}

 \begin{document}

  \setcounter{tocdepth}{2} 
  \setcounter{secnumdepth}{3} 
  \tableofcontents

  \chapter{First chapter}

  \begin{appendices}
   \addappheadtotoc
   \appendixpage
   \clearpage
   \chapter{Some name}
   \label{label1}
   blah blah
  \end{appendices}

\end{document}

this gives in the ToC:

Apéndice Appendices....................60
Apéndice A. Some name..................63

and in the body of the document:

Appendices
(page skip)
Apéndice A
Some name

blah blah

1. The TOC shows "Apéndice Appendices" and I need it to show "Apéndices" (note the "s" at the end of that word; it's not the same word that the first one currently in the TOC) Also in the body of the document it shows "Appendices" (in english) and I also need it to say "Apéndices" (in spanish), ie: the same word that should be displayed in the TOC. This looks like a babel issue to me.

2. Is there a way not to have to give each appendix a name? This is done with the \chapter{Some name} command, but I'd like the name of Apéndice A to be just that: Apéndice A. This way the ToC would look like (assuming the 1st point is fixed):

   Apéndices........................60
   Apéndice A.......................63
   

   and the body of the document:

   Apéndices
   (page skip)
   Apéndice A
   
   blah blah
   

   Is there any way to do this?

---

I think a hack to accomplish the 2nd point would be to combine @murray's answer with not giving a name to the chapter. This is, this line \chapter{Some name} would have to be replaced by:

\chapter[]{}

It's not pretty but I think it gets the job done. If anybody knows of a more elegant way to do this, please let me know.

Answer 1

If I understand the appendix manual correctly, then the \addappheadtotoc and \appendixpage should only be used if the appendices environment is not used. If the appendices environment is used, then the same effect is created by using the toc and page package options, i.e. loading the package as

\usepackage[titletoc,toc,page]{appendix}

Further, since babel doesn't contain translations for the appendix package, you have to set them yourself:

\renewcommand{\appendixtocname}{Ap\'endices}
\renewcommand{\appendixpagename}{Ap\'endices}

The actual appendices are then created with (note that the \clearpage is not needed)

\begin{appendices}
  \chapter{Some name}
  blah blah
\end{appendices}

This gives me the desired result:

Answer 2

I think the following will do what you want: for each individual appendix, instead of \chapter{Some name} use \chapter[]{Some name}.