How do I skip items in a legend?

How do I skip items in legend? Say I have 6 plots with 3 actual values and 3 interpolated curves. I only want to label the actual value curves so

 legend('first','','second','','third') 

doesn't really work because the interpolated curve still shows.

[EhsanZ]

1- Select the curve you don't want have legend. 2- Go to the "more properties" (while the curve is still selected). 3- Turn "HandleVisibility" off.

[FTil]

Or programmatically:

plot(...,'HandleVisibility','off')

[Akash Menon]

figure
h1=histfit(no_ess,20,'gamma');
xlim([0 1])
hold on
h2=histfit(with_ess,50,'kernel');
xlim([0 1])
set(get(get(h1(2),'Annotation'),'LegendInformation'),'IconDisplayStyle','off');
set(get(get(h2(2),'Annotation'),'LegendInformation'),'IconDisplayStyle','off');
legend('MCR SOL','MCR SOL ESS')

Here's a quick sample of how it worked- for my histograms I didn't want the two red lines to be labelled in the legend. I found out that for the histograms- it creates a handle h(1) and (2) where 1 corresponds to the bar charts and 2 to the fitting lines.

Just an example- hope it helps!

[neurosock hardcore BCIs]

The nice thing about 'HandleVisibility' in contrast to 'IconDisplayStyle' is that it can be called directly in the function of plots and patches:

plot(...,'HandleVisibility','off')
patch(...,'HandleVisibility','off')

[Dandro18048]

@FTil I was looking exactly for this, thank you very much! Simplest solution of everything that's been posted here.

[Giuseppe Degan Di Dieco]

Dear Akash,

thanks for your tip, hope you're still reagind these days.

It really helped me in avoid plotting one of two labels in a stacked bar plot.

Best.

[Rik]

@Giuseppe Degan Di Dieco, regarding your flag ("Really helpful, and easy to code because of the set and get commands!"): flags are used to attract the attention of site admins and users with editing privileges. They should not be used as personal bookmarks.

[Giuseppe Degan Di Dieco]

@Rik

Sorry then, if there is a way for removing it, please let me know, and I will amend it.

I will bear in mind for the future.

Best.

[Rik]

No problem. I have already removed the flag.

[Giuseppe Degan Di Dieco]

Hi Rik,

thanks for your work.

Best.

[Christian Busse]

Hello,

the changes made in MATLAB 2021a do not produced expected/desired results. Using

leg = legend('first','second','third') 
leg.String(2) = ''

does not skip producing a legend label for the second curve but rather assigns the label 'third' to the second curve.

I couldn't find any hint in the documentation how to actually skip/remove legend labels for particular curves and keep the others as is.

[Christian Busse]

Ok this workaround found in the comments below, actually solved my problem:

legend([h1 h3],{'Leg1' 'Leg3'});

Assuming that the line1 and line3 have been assigned to h1 and h3 (h1 = plot(...), h3 = plot(...)), respectively.

[Greg Vieira]

How can you do this for multiple plots? For example, I have 1001 data sets plotted and only want the legend to show 1 of the first 1000 plots and the last plot. It is not reasonable for me to place 999 ' ' placeholders.

[Kaveh Vejdani]

First plot data1, then data1001, the set L.AutoUpdate = 'off'; % L=Legend

Answer 1

[Kenneth Eaton]

Starting in R2021a, you can leave an item out of a legend by setting the corresponding label to an empty character vector. For example, plot three lines. Then call the legend function and specify the second legend label as an empty character vector. The corresponding line is omitted from the legend.

plot(rand(3)); legend('Line 1','','Line 3') 

Note that this strategy works when you specify just the labels, and not when you specify a set of objects to include in the legend.

For previous releases, you can specify the objects that you want to include as the first input argument to the “legend” function.  

For example, plot three lines and return the “Line” objects as array “p”. Include only the first and third lines in the legend by specifying “p(1)” and “p(3)” as the first input argument to “legend”. 

 p = plot(rand(3)); 
 legend([p(1) p(3)],'plot 1','plot 3') 

Alternatively, you can set the “IconDisplayStyle” to “off” for the object that you do not want to include in the legend. For example, exclude the second “Line” object, “p(2)”. 

 p = plot(rand(3)); 
 set(get(get(p(2),'Annotation'),'LegendInformation'),'IconDisplayStyle','off'); 
 legend('plot 1','plot 3') 

[Dan]

If the lines were created in a seperate file and you can't reach them :

    h = findobj(gca,'Type','line');

will get you all of the line objects :)

[Walter Roberson]

Dan, in terms of the original Question, that would get you the handles of the "actual" lines together with the "interpolated" lines. Potentially you might know which is which by indexing; otherwise you might need to examine the line properties such as the linestyle in order to figure out whether it is one of the ones you want or not.

[Zheng Liu]

Hi Ken, I found the solution works most cases, except I have an unexist line (which has an empty handle). I want to skip the legend of the line, if the line not there. For example:

 h1 = plot([]);      % Blue line
 hold on;
 h2 = plot(rand(1,10),'r');  % Red line
 h3 = plot(rand(1,10),'g');  % Green line
 legend([h1 h2 h3],{'want to skip this if line unexist', 'hello', 'world'});

However, the legend for h1 will be assigned on h2, and the legend for h3 will be ignored. Do you have any idea of this? Thanks!

[Jeff Miller]

For anyone using this technique, be advised it seems that legend('Location','SouthEast') resets the plot to give the full set of legends, even those dropped (at least in 2016b). For example,

legend([h1 h2],{'Leg1' 'Leg2'});
legend('Location','SouthEast');  % this sequence shows all legends, not just 1st two.

legend('Location','SouthEast');  % this sequence shows just the first 2 legends
legend([h1 h2],{'Leg1' 'Leg2'});

Not sure if this is a bug or a feature. :)

[Tomer Nahshon]

@Zheng Liu Wonderful answer,

Thank you!

[Dan Houck]

I just upgraded from 2020a to 2021b. Previously, using an emptry character vector in the legend would leave the symbol (line, marker, etc.) and just not give it a label. Now that omits the entire legend entry. How do I get the former again???

[DGM]

Can you just use a space instead?

plot(rand(3)); 
legend('Line 1',' ','Line 3')

[Sheridan McPheeters]

@DGM your solution leaves the item in the legend, only unlabeled. This is a poor solution if you have many items which you do not want to appearin the legend, such as knots in a spline, local minima and maxima, etc. Also, in 2021a and on, I believe, using empty quotes (i.e. ''), rather than a space, will remove the item from the legend, entirely.

[DGM]

I was responding to @Dan Houck who was asking specifically for a means to avoid the implicit item removal that happens in R2021a. Leaving the unlabeled marker was the goal.

As to whether what Dan asked for is visually objectionable, you're free to tell him.

[Kaveh Vejdani]

L = legend;

L.AutoUpdate = 'off';

Answer 2

[Matt Lobo]

A really good method is to do what's mentioned at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13685967/how-to-show-legend-for-only-a-specific-subset-of-curves-in-the-plotting.

Essentially set the 'HandleVisibility' attribute to 'off' when plotting something, as such:

plot(x,y,'HandleVisibility','off')

This has some implications concerning interacting with that handle in other ways, but if you don't plan on using the handle, this is a great dynamic way to not include certain plots in your legend. It works especially well when you're plotting iteratively, and don't want to store handles and then hard-code the legend to fit your exact plot.

[Giuseppe Degan Di Dieco]

Thank you Matt for updating the thread.

Keep in touch for tips sharing and creating a MATLAB users community.

Best.

[Michael Van de Graaff]

This was very helpful Matt, thank you

[Sebastian Lopez]

Really helpful. Thanks!

[Andres Ricardo Herrera Orozco]

Really helpful. Thanks!

[Hannah]

Fantastic advice. Thank you.

Answer 3

[Walter Roberson]

You can set the IconDisplayStyle to off for the items you do not wish a legend for. See this documentation.

Edit by @Rik (2022/04/05):

The link above was valid for the documentation from R2012a. The equivalent page in R2022a suggests a different strategy (i.e. only providing the handles to legend for the objects you wish to include). In the current release IconDisplayStyle is documentated under the properties of the graphics primitives (e.g. line objects or patch objects).

Documentation pages from specific releases will remain online for 5 years.

[Jack Barrett]

this is a much nicer solution. kudos

[Danny Smith]

Wow, this solution is much smoother than the other proposed, and more generally applicable.

It allows you to turn off the ones you don't want, rather than having to turn on the ones you do. If you (like me) are plotting many data sets on the same graph, this is much more useful and simple.

If you have the handle for the data set you DON'T want included, all you need is this line:

set(get(get(h,'Annotation'),'LegendInformation'),'IconDisplayStyle','off');

where "h" is changed to the name of your handle.

For more information, follow the link provided by Walter and John.

[Tom]

This is the ideal solution for implementing "plot" in a loop where it is difficult to assign a unique handle each iteration. Thank you!

[Nuwan Liyanage]

This is really helpful, thanks!

[Fernando Zigunov]

broken link!

[Tanya Meyer]

Yes - broken link :(

Answer 4

[Junette Hsin]

I ran into this problem and I have not seen this method suggested yet, but I solved it by changing the order of my plotted lines which affects what the legend displays (I am using MATLAB R2017b).

Let's say you plot 2 lines first, and then create a legend. Then you plot a 3rd line. That 3rd line will be added to your legend as 'data 1'.

Instead plot 3 lines, and then in your legend, label just the first 2 lines. The 3rd line will be omitted from the legend.

Hope this helps.

[TheLast One]

Simplest solution :)

[Orhan Soyuhos]

Thank you!

[Jim Tonti]

Another way to eliminate further plots from getting an automatic legend update (resuting in the 'data 1', 'data 2' etc. legend entries) was suggested by Phuc Bui on 2021-03-03 in a comment for the entry zoomPlot : Kelsey Bower (2021). zoomPlot

The most simple way to avoid "data1", "data2" is turning off the autoupdate property of the legend:

legend({'A','B'},'AutoUpdate','off')

[Brent F]

@Jim Tonti Yes! Upvote his solution: legend({'A','B'},'AutoUpdate','off')

[Gabriela Belicova]

Both very helpful, thank you so much !!!

Answer 5

[Yasin Zamani]

For example, suppose you want to skip the name of the first plot in the legend:

x = linspace(0, 2 * pi);

% sin(x)
h = plot(x, sin(x));
% the following line skip the name of the previous plot from the legend
h.Annotation.LegendInformation.IconDisplayStyle = 'off';

% cos(x)
plot(x, cos(x));

% legend
legend('cos');

[Giulio Suzumura]

Tks. Best approach when uses 'hold on's and external functions.

[Donald Liu]

Good solution, short and concise!

[Carl Witthoft]

doesn't seem to work for a "fill" object

[Soham Sinha]

Thanks

Answer 6

[Boris Blagojevic]

An alternative approach: Prevent the legend from updating

First, plot the lines that you want to have labeled. Then, specify the legend and set

legend(....,'AutoUpdate','off')

then, plot the remaining lines

[Riaan Ferreira]

This worked briliantly

[Faezeh Ashouri]

Thanks!

[Rik]

Comment posted as flag by Fatima u'wais:

intersted

[Dr.Jaber Aljuaidiyah]

This works nicely. Thanks pal

Answer 7

[the cyclist]

Each curve has a handle, which can be obtained from the properties. Use the form of legend that takes two arguments (handle and legend), and only use the handles of those curves that you want to show.

Answer 8

[Dilshad Raihan]

You can do this by first plotting the curves in an order so that the lines you don't want to be displayed in the legend comes in the end. That is, suppose you have N lines to be plotted but you dont want to display m of these in the legend. Then first plot the required N-m lines and then the remaining m. After that, turn the legend on, click on the legend and the "legend property editor" will be displayed. Go to the "more properties" option. You can see an entry titled "String" specified as a "1xN cell array". Click on the cell array icon and set the size as "1xN-m". Now, only the first N-m curves will be displayed in Legend.

[Harish Pulluri]

Thnak you sir, for giving the solution

Answer 9

[Diaa]

You can simply delete the last undesired entry by the following:

% assume you plotted some curves before this line and all of them are desired to be shown in the legend

hleg = legend('show');
plot(x,y) % you don't need this plot in the legend
hleg.String(end) = []; % delete the last legend entry of the very last plot

% continue plotting while copy and paste the previous line immediately after any plot you don't need in the legend

[Amir Semnani]

Thanks. That worked for me (MATLAB 2017b) and it's very simple. Let's assume we have 8 datasets and we want to plot all of them, but only want to see the legend for dataset with even number.

x=ones(100,1)*(1:8); plot(x);ylim([0 9]); hleg = legend ('show'); hleg.String(1:2:end)=[];

Answer 10

[Image Analyst]

Every time you plot, get the handle to the points or curves. Then pass only those that you want into legend. Here is a full demo:

lineSize = 2;
markerSize = 30;
% Define 3 data sets
x1 = [-1.9, 0.004, 1.94];
x2 = [-1.94, -0.23, 1.95];
x3 = [-1.92, .2, 1.93];
y1 = [13.885, 10.168, 14.235];
y2 = [9.3805, 5.2697, 9.3367];
y3 = [4.5262, 0.80904, 4.0889];
% Interpolate the 3 curves.
xFit = linspace(-2, 2, 500);
coefficients1 = polyfit(x1, y1, 2);
yFit1 = polyval(coefficients1, xFit);
coefficients2 = polyfit(x2, y2, 2);
yFit2 = polyval(coefficients2, xFit);
coefficients3 = polyfit(x3, y3, 2);
yFit3 = polyval(coefficients3, xFit);
% Plot the 3 data sets and their interpolated curves
handle1 = plot(x1, y1, 'r.', 'MarkerSize', markerSize);
hold on;
handle2 = plot(xFit, yFit1, 'r-', 'LineWidth', lineSize);
handle3 = plot(x2, y2, 'b.', 'MarkerSize', markerSize);
handle4 = plot(xFit, yFit2, 'b-', 'LineWidth', lineSize);
handle5 = plot(x3, y3, 'g.', 'MarkerSize', markerSize);
handle6 = plot(xFit, yFit3, 'g-', 'LineWidth', lineSize);
grid on;
% Have the legend only for the data, not the interpolated fit
% by passing in only the plot handles of the data.
legend([handle1, handle3, handle5], 'Data1', 'Data2', 'Data3', 'Location', 'north');

[Allyce]

This was certainly an easy way to solve the issue - I was using two y-axis situation and had optional items in each axis - so I COULD have ordered the plot statements but much easier to set up the handles and then use the legend at the end. Thank you.

Answer 11

[Akshay Ravindran]

Why is it that this error keeps coming up?

<<

>>

[Walter Roberson]

[z, x, c, v, b, n, m] looks like it might be intended as the list of "entries" to be annotated. Is it possible that those variables all hold column vectors instead of scalars, with the result that [z, x, c, v, b, n, m] is a 2 dimensional array?

[Ajith Tom George]

If z,x,c etc are the handles, then remove the commas:

i.e. [z w c ...] and you are good to go!

[Walter Roberson]

No, in each case where z w c etc are expressions that have no spaces in them, [z w c ...] is the same as [z, w, c, ...]

Spaces in expressions sometimes trigger parsing as if there were multiple expressions. For example:

[1 -2*x]

is considered two expressions, 1 and -2*x

Answer 12

[Luke Marsden]

I am trying to do a similar thing using this line of code:

   leg = legend([p4 RETU_Average activity1 Vulcanian1], 'Tilt', 'RETU Mean Amplitude', 'Activity', '"Vulcanian" Explosions', 'Location', 'northeast');

I am getting this error:

   Error using matlab.graphics.chart.primitive.Line/horzcat
   Cannot convert double value 23 to a handle

   Error in p1_zoom_plot (line 93)
   leg = legend([p4 RETU_Average, activity1 Vulcanian1], 'Tilt', 'RETU Mean Amplitude', 'Activity', '"Vulcanian" Explosions', 'Location', 'northeast');

[Walter Roberson]

One of p4 RETU_Average activity1 Vulcanian1 contains the numeric value 23 instead of containing the handle to a graphics object.

The comma looks suspicious there.

I speculate that you might have passed in the values you are plotting rather than a copy of the handle that you got when you plotted them.

[Luke Marsden]

Thanks for your reply Walter. With your help I have solved the problem.

23 is the first value in the vector named 'RETU_Average'. I was trying to pass the vector into the legend rather than the handle, which I created using this line of code.

p1 = plot (time, RETU_Average, 'LineWidth', 2);

New legend text for reference of anyone else who has made a similar mistake:

leg = legend([p4 p1 activity1 Vulcanian1], 'Tilt', 'RETU Mean Amplitude', 'Activity', '"Vulcanian" Explosions', 'Location', 'northeast');

[Brent F]

Have you gotten this method of generating a legend using plot handles to work within a subplot?

[Rik]

@Brent F A subplot is simply a new axes object, so any method should work. You should be careful when using gca or when not supplying a handle at all, as the last axes with user interaction will be the target of your calls.

Answer 13

[Juan Carlos de Luna]

Select line in Plot Browser and type

set(get(get(gco,'Annotation'),'LegendInformation'),'IconDisplayStyle','off')

[Bart Boonstra]

Thanks that worked for me!

[Marya Sadki]

Me too thanks

Answer 14

[K Anderson]

If you plot multiple lines with the same plot command like this

h(1,:) = plot(rand(4,11),'r')

h = 
  1x11 Line array:

    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line

hold on
h(2,:) = plot(rand(4,11),'b')

h = 
  2x11 Line array:

    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line
    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line    Line

and use

legend

on this, you get a 2x11 long legend

but you only want to highlight the first red and first blue line use this;

legend([h(1,1) h(2,1)],'red','blue')

This is mentioned in the documentation as;

legend(subset,___) only includes items in the legend for the data series listed in subset. Specify subset as a vector of graphics objects. You can specify subset before specifying the labels or with no other input arguments.