Change the word “Table” in table captions

Question

I need to have tables with their numbers, just as when I use \caption.

My problem is that when I use the \caption it shows me like this:

Cuadro x.x: this is some table.

The word Cuadro is because I'm using a document class as spanish. I want to change that word "Cuadro". Is it possible to do that?

Answer 1

Since you are using babel with the spanish option, the default behaviour is to use "Cuadro" as \tablename (following a recommendation from the RAE); however, it is also usual, and many people prefer this regardless of what the RAE says) to use "Tabla" instead. You can use the es-tabla option for babel to change the name to "Tabla":

\usepackage[spanish,es-tabla]{babel}

Another option to get "Tabla" is to use the mexico package option

\usepackage[spanish,mexico]{babel}

but this option also changes the behaviour of the quotation marks and of the decimal separator (for details, texdoc spanish on a terminal).

If you want to change the name to some other string, you can redefine \spanishtablename:

\usepackage[spanish]{babel}
\renewcommand\spanishtablename{Otro nombre}

Answer 2

You can use the caption package like in the following

\documentclass[12pt, letterpaper]{article}
\usepackage{caption}
\captionsetup[table]{name=New Table Name}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}\centering
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|}
test & test\\
\end{tabular}
\caption{test caption}
\end{table}

\end{document}