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Guide to Legends in Grapher

Updated

Grapher offers an array of robust customization options for legends, enabling you to craft impactful legends tailored to your specific requirements. Craft individual plot legends or comprehensive multi-graph legends. Tweak and tinker with legends by adding or omitting plots, rearranging categories within a Class Plot legend, inverting the sequence of legend items, splitting legends, fine-tuning sample sizes for individual entries, and much more!

  Table of Contents

Adding a Legend to a Graph

Add a legend

Add a multi-graph legend

Add a plot legend

Add or remove plots from a legend

Reorder Classes in the Legend for Class Plots Using Text Classes

Reverse the Order of Legend Entries

Break Apart a Legend

Control Sample Size in Legend for Individual Entries

Editing Other Legend Properties

Edit the number of symbols

Edit the legend line length

Change the number of columns

Change individual properties for each legend entry

Change properties for all legend entries at once

 

Adding a Legend to a Graph

Legends provide details about each plot or graph in your project. The legend type you need for your plot depends on your plot type and the information that needs to be defined.
 

Type

Description
Legend Displays information about each plot in one graph (including the slices in pie or doughnut charts)
Multi-graph Legend Displays information about all plots in all graphs on one page
Plot Legend Displays information about the classes in class plots (2D, XYZ, polar, ternary, piper), bubble size and color in bubble plots, or bins in wind charts
Color Table Legend  Displays information about fill colors defined in a color table
Symbol Table Legend  Displays information about symbols defined in a symbol table
Color Scale  Displays the values associated with colors applied via a colormap

 

Add a legend

To add a legend to your graph:
  1. Click on the Graph or any plot in the graph to select it.
  2. Click the Graph Tools | Add to Graph | Graph Legend command. A default legend displaying all plots is added to the graph.

Legend.png
The default legend is added to the graph,
displaying all of the plots in the graph in the order the plots are drawn.

 

Add a multi-graph legend

A multi-graph legend can be added to collections of 2D or 3D plots.  To add a multi-graph legend to your project click Graph Tools | Add to Graph | Multi-Graph Legend.

 

Add a plot legend

To display a legend for classes, bubbles, bins, or other plots with more information:

  1. Select a plot type that can use a plot legend.
  2. Click the Graph Tools | Add to Graph | Plot Legend command.

 

 
To add or remove plots to existing legend in Grapher, complete the steps below.
  1. Click on the Legend in the Object Manager to select it.
  2. In the Property Manager, click on the Entries tab.
  3. Click the Edit button next to Add/remove entries.
  4. In the Select Plots dialog, check or uncheck the boxes next to the plots to be added or removed from the legend.

  1. Click OK. The plots are added to the legend.
To add additional plots to an existing legend in Grapher v14 and older, please follow these steps:
  1. Click on the Legend in the Object Manager to select it.
  2. In the Property Manager, click on the Legend tab.
  3. Click the Edit button next to Entries.
  4. In the Legend Entries dialog, click the Add or Delete button. 
    1. If you're adding a plot:
    2. In the Select Plots dialog, choose the Graph containing the plot(s) you want to add.
    3. Click all of the plots you want to add and click OK.

  1. Click OK. The plots are added to the legend.

 

Text classes that use the Name method can be reordered in Grapher. Previously, class order was set by listed worksheet order. But you can re-order your text classes to any preferred order.

legend-2.jpg  legend-1.jpg

To reorder legend clases:
  1. In the Object Manager, select your Class Plot (2D, Ternary, or other class plot)
  2. In the Property Manager, click the Plot tab
  3. Click the Edit... button next to the Classes field
  4. In the Edit Classes dialog, ensure the Method field is set to Name
  5. Reorder classes by:
    1. Selecting a class and moving it with respect to the other by clicking the Up or Dn buttons
    2. Dragging and dropping individual classes to move them to a new position in the list.
      legend-3.png
  6. Click OK or Apply to set the changes

 

Grapher orders legend entries in the same order as they were created in the Object Manager. The plot listed at the bottom of the Object Manager was drawn first in the graph and appears at the top of the legend.

Grapher's Legend order
Comparison of plot order between the Object Manager and default legend.

 

To reverse the order of the plots in the legend:

  1. Click on the Legend in the Object Manager to select it.
  2. In the Property Manager, click on the Legend tab.
  3. Check the box next to the Draw descending option. The entries in the legend will automatically reverse direction.

Grapher's legend can be reordered by changing the order in the Object Manager
The legend updates to show the new reversed order.

If you need more control over the legend or wish to customize it further, you can break apart the legend into individual objects. Each object can then be edited separately.

 

To break the legend apart:

  1. Click on the Legend 1 in the Object Manager to select it.
  2. Click the Graph Tools | Plot Tools| Detach Legend command.

legend selected in Grapher Object Manager

The legend is broken apart into multiple new objects, including text, polylines, and polygons. Depending on what the legend looked like before, it may now look like this:

Legend.png
Once detached, the legend becomes several
new objects, including text, polylines, and polygons.

 

Note that edited objects cannot be converted back into a Legend object after their individual properties have been adjusted.

 

Control Sample Size in Legend for Individual Entries

You can adjust the size of each legend entry independently of other legend entries in Grapher.

  1. Select the legend.
  2. Click on the Entries tab in the Property Manager.
  3. In the Individual Entries section, select the desired legend entry from the Entry list.
  4. Change the Sample size method to Custom.
  5. Adjust the Sample size to the desired size.

 

Legends.png

Adjusting the legend entry for a gradient-filled bar chart allows for easier identification of all colors present in the gradient.

 

Editing Other Legend Properties

Edit the number of symbols

  1. Click on the Legend in the Object Manager to select it.
  2. In the Property Manager, click on the Legend tab.
  3. Change the value next to the Number of symbols.

Edit the legend line length

  1. Click on the Legend in the Object Manager to select it.
  2. In the Property Manager, click on the Legend tab.
  3. Change the value next to the Line length.

Change the number of columns

  1. Click on the Legend in the Object Manager to select it.
  2. In the Property Manager, click on the Legend tab.
  3. Change the value next to the Number of columns.

Change individual properties for each legend entry

  1. Click on the Legend in the Object Manager to select it.
  2. In the Property Manager, click on the Entries tab.
  3. Click next to Entry to select the specific entry you want to edit.
  4. Make any property changes to the selected entry, including the Entry Order.

Change properties for all legend entries at once

  1. Click on the Legend in the Object Manager to select it.
  2. In the Property Manager, click on the Entries tab.
  3. Make any property changes under the All Entries section, which will apply to all entries in the legend.

Updated May 2023

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