elsarticle: appendix and a table of contents

Question

Appendices does not work well in a table of contents for the elsarticle class.

Example:

\documentclass[number,sort&compress,3p]{elsarticle}
\begin{document}
\begin{frontmatter}
\title{Example}
\author{Ben}
\begin{abstract} 
Test
\end{abstract}
\end{frontmatter}
\tableofcontents
\section{Introduction}
Test
\appendix
\section{Extra material}
Extra
\end{document}

"Appendix A" and "Extra material" are typeset on top of each other in the table of contents. Are there any fixes to this problem?

Answer 1

You can fix it by redefining \thesection after \appendix, i.e.

\appendix
\renewcommand*{\thesection}{\Alph{section}}

Now you would get "A. Extra material". Originally, elsarticle defines within \appendix:

\gdef\thesection{\appendixname\@Alph\c@section}%

which results in "Appendix A Extra material". The section number is typeset using \numberline which doesn't fit.

Alternatively you could just set in your preamble

\renewcommand*{\appendixname}{}

I think, if you don't write "Section 1" and "Section 2", there's no need to write "Appendix A" and "Appendix B". Firstly, for consistency in naming, secondly because alphabetic numbering already signalizes appendices.