How to change Appendix chapter name

Question

I have a long appendix which includes a lot of equations and figures. My document class is report. In order to have a separate appendix section, I used:

\appendix
\chapter{The first appendix} 

The outcome shows like this

Chapter A

The first appendix

How can I change it to:

Appendix A

The first appendix

I also tried

\chapter*{Appendix: The First Appendix}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Appendix: The First Appendix}

But in this way, my equation number does not start with A.1. This will not work for me.

Answer 1

As xport noted, you probably have an old (very old) version of TeX. Newer version don't have this problem. The best solution is to update; you probably have a lot of other since-corrected misfeatures in addition to this one. If you can't update, try the following:

\appendix
\renewcommand\chaptername{Appendix}
\chapter{The first appendix} 

Answer 2

I do not really understand your problem. However, maybe that you are looking fro something like this:

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{blindtext}

\makeatletter
\def\setChapterprefix#1{\gdef\@Prefix{#1}}
\setChapterprefix{}
\renewcommand*\l@chapter[2]{%
  \ifnum \c@tocdepth >\m@ne
    \addpenalty{-\@highpenalty}%
    \vskip 1.0em \@plus\p@
    \setlength\@tempdima{1.5em}%
    \begingroup
      \parindent \z@ \rightskip \@pnumwidth
      \parfillskip -\@pnumwidth
      \leavevmode \bfseries
      \advance\leftskip\@tempdima
      \hskip -\leftskip
      \@Prefix 
      #1\nobreak\hfil \nobreak\hb@xt@\@pnumwidth{\hss #2}\par
      \penalty\@highpenalty
    \endgroup
  \fi}
    \makeatother
\begin{document}
    \tableofcontents
    \chapter{Introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics}
        \blindtext
    \appendix
    \addtocontents{toc}{\protect\setChapterprefix{Appendix }}
    \chapter{Calculus of Variations}
        \blindtext
    \chapter{Digital Signal Processing}
        \blindtext
\end{document}

Answer 3

Use the following code within the chapter not the preamble:

\setcounter{chapter}{0}
\appendix
\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\@chapapp}{Appendix}
\makeatother

Answer 4

Before starting the chapter that will be your appendix insert the following commands:

\renewcommand\chaptername{Appendix}                      % hereafter, chapters are called "Appendix"
\renewcommand\thechapter{\Alph{chapter}}                % chapter number in alph letters
\renewcommand\thesection{\Alph{chapter}.\Roman{section}} % make sections "A.I"
\setcounter{chapter}{0}                                  % start numbering chapters from 1 on again