How can I hold the previous "legend" on a plot? (2024)

FAQs

How do you put a legend inside a plot? ›

Control legend position with legend.

To put it around the chart, use the legend. position option and specify top , right , bottom , or left . To put it inside the plot area, specify a vector of length 2, both values going between 0 and 1 and giving the x and y coordinates.

Answer. If your graph has more than one line, then you should always include a legend. Graphs should try to be self-explanatory, and provide enough information that someone unfamiliar with it, can look at it and understand what the data represents and what each line is describing.

To move the legend outside the plot, we'll use the bbox_to_anchor and loc parameters of the legend function. The bbox_to_anchor parameter specifies the legend's position. The tuple (1.05, 1) positions the legend just outside the plot's right edge. The loc parameter determines where the legend's anchor point should be.

Figure legends

Sometimes it makes more sense to place a legend relative to the (sub)figure rather than individual Axes. By using constrained layout and specifying "outside" at the beginning of the loc keyword argument, the legend is drawn outside the Axes on the (sub)figure.

Click the chart, and then click the Chart Design tab. Click Add Chart Element > Legend. To change the position of the legend, choose Right, Top, Left, or Bottom. To change the format of the legend, click More Legend Options, and then make the format changes that you want.

Legend Placement

Legends should be placed below or to the right to a data visualization, depending on the type of data being labeled and the available space surrounding the data visualization. When a large set of values exist ensure the legend is placed on the right of the chart.

The same principle applies when adding text to your legend, such as a legend title. Legend titles should be used to add context and explain your map. Don't title your legend “legend”—your reader will know it is a legend. If there's no better title then "legend", it doesn't need a title at all.

How should a legend look? ›

You can do this using the bbox_to_anchor argument. This argument takes a tuple of two or four numbers, which represent the coordinates for the legend's new location. In this case, the first number in the tuple moves the legend along the x-axis, and the second number moves it along the y-axis.

Under Chart Tools, on the Design tab, in the Data group, click Select Data. In the Select Data Source dialog box, in the Legend Entries (Series) box, click the data series that you want to change the order of. Click the Move Up or Move Down arrows to move the data series to the position that you want.

The easiest is to use hue= with the same variable as x= . You'll need to set dodge=False as by default a position is reserved for each x - hue combination. Note that when you aren't using hue , no legend is added as the names and colors are given by the x tick labels.