Appendixes

LaTeX provides an exceedingly simple mechanism for appendixes: the command \appendix switches the document from generating sections (in article class) or chapters (in report or book classes) to producing appendixes. Section or chapter numbering is restarted and the representation of the counter switches to alphabetic. So:

\section{My inspiration}
...

\section{Developing the inspiration}
...

\appendix
\section{How I became inspired}
...

would be typeset (in an article document) something like: 1  My inspiration

…

2  Developing the inspiration

…

A  How I became inspired

… which is quite enough for many ordinary purposes. Note that, once you’ve switched to typesetting appendixes, LaTeX provides you with no way back — once you’ve had an appendix, you can no longer have an “ordinary” \section or \chapter.

The appendix provides several ways of elaborating on this simple setup. Straightforward use of the package allows you to have a separate heading, both in the body of the document and the table of contents; this would be achieved by

\usepackage{appendix}
...
\appendix
\appendixpage
\addappheadtotoc

The \appendixpage command adds a separate title “Appendices” above the first appendix, and \addappheadtotoc adds a similar title to the table of contents. These simple modifications cover many people’s needs about appendixes.

The package also provides an appendices environment, which provides for fancier use. The environment is best controlled by package options; the above example would be achieved by

\usepackage[toc,page]{appendix}
...
\begin{appendices}
...
\end{appendices}

The great thing that the appendices environment gives you, is that once the environment ends, you can carry on with sections or chapters as before — numbering isn’t affected by the intervening appendixes.

The package provides another alternative way of setting appendixes, as inferior divisions in the document. The subappendices environment allows you to put separate appendixes for a particular section, coded as \subsections, or for a particular chapter, coded as \sections. So one might write:

\usepackage{appendix}
...
\section{My inspiration}
...
\begin{subappendices}
\subsection{How I became inspired}
...
\end{subappendices}

\section{Developing the inspiration}
...

Which will produce output something like: 1  My inspiration

…

1.A  How I became inspired

…

2  Developing the inspiration

…

There are many other merry things one may do with the package; the user is referred to the package documentation for further details.

The memoir class includes the facilities of the appendix package. The KOMA-script classes offer a \appendixprefix command for manipulating the appearance of appendixes.

FAQ ID: Q-appendix
Tags: structure