MATLAB Legend Masterclass: 5 Scenario Cases, Creating Custom Legends

# MATLAB Legend Mastery: 5 Scenario Cases for Customizing Legends

## 1. Legend Fundamentals

The legend in MATLAB is a graphical element used to identify different data series in a plot. It provides information about each series, such as its name, line style, markers, and color.

Legends can be placed anywhere in a chart and can be customized in terms of size, text, and color. By setting legend properties, you can control the appearance and behavior of the legend to enhance the clarity and readability of your chart.

MATLAB offers a variety of functions and properties to manage legends, including `legend`, `legendbox`, `legendtext`, and `legendcolor`. These functions and properties allow you to create and modify legends to meet your specific needs.

## 2. Customizing Legends

Legends are an important visualization element in MATLAB that can help users understand and interpret the data in a chart. By default, MATLAB automatically generates legends, but users can also customize them to meet specific needs. This chapter will introduce how to customize the position, size, text, color, line style, and markers of legends.

### 2.1 Legend Position and Size

#### 2.1.1 Setting Legend Position

% Create a chart with a legend
figure;
plot(1:10, rand(1, 10), 'b-', 'LineWidth', 2);
hold on;
plot(1:10, rand(1, 10), 'r--', 'LineWidth', 2);
legend('Blue Solid Line', 'Red Dashed Line');

% Set legend position
legend('Location', 'northwest');

**Code Logic Analysis:**

* `figure` creates a new figure window.
* `plot` draws two lines, one blue solid line and one red dashed line.
* `legend` creates a legend with labels for the two lines.
* `legend('Location', 'northwest')` sets the legend's position to the northwest corner.

#### 2.1.2 Adjusting Legend Size

% Create a chart with a legend
figure;
plot(1:10, rand(1, 10), 'b-', 'LineWidth', 2);
hold on;
plot(1:10, rand(1, 10), 'r--', 'LineWidth', 2);
legend('Blue Solid Line', 'Red Dashed Line');

% Adjust legend size
legend('FontSize', 12, 'FontName', 'Arial');

**Code Logic Analysis:**

* `figure` creates a new figure window.
* `plot` draws two lines, one blue solid line and one red dashed line.
* `legend` creates a legend with labels for the two lines.
* `legend('FontSize', 12, 'FontName', 'Arial')` sets the legend's font size to 12 and font name to Arial.

### 2.2 Legend Text and Color

#### 2.2.1 Setting Legend Text

% Create a chart with a legend
figure;
plot(1:10, rand(1, 10), 'b-', 'LineWidth', 2);
hold on;
plot(1:10, rand(1, 10), 'r--', 'LineWidth', 2);
legend('Blue Solid Line', 'Red Dashed Line');

% Set legend text
legend('Location', 'northwest', 'String', {'Blue Line', 'Red Dashed Line'});

**Code Logic Analysis:**

* `figure` creates a new figure window.
* `plot` draws two lines, one blue solid line and one red dashed line.
* `legend` creates a legend with labels for the two lines.
* `legend('Location', 'northwest', 'String', {'Blue Line', 'Red Dashed Line'})` sets the legend's text to "Blue Line" and "Red Dashed Line".

#### 2.2.2 Changing Legend Color

% Create a chart with a legend
figure;
plot(1:10, rand(1, 10), 'b-', 'LineWidth', 2);
hold on;
plot(1:10, rand(1, 10), 'r--', 'LineWidth', 2);
legend('Blue Solid Line', 'Red Dashed Line');

% Change legend color
legend('Location', 'northwest', 'TextColor', 'black', 'EdgeColor', 'blue');

**Code Logic Analysis:**

* `figure` creates a new figure window.
* `plot` draws two lines, one blue solid line and one red dashed line.
* `legend` creates a legend with labels for the two lines.
* `legend('Location', 'northwest', 'TextColor', 'black', 'EdgeColor', 'blue')` sets the legend's text color to black and the edge color to blue.

### 2.3 Legend Line Style and Markers

#### 2.3.1 Setting Line Style

% Create a chart with a legend
figure;
plot(1:10, rand(1, 10), 'b-', 'LineWidth', 2);
hold on;
plot(1:10, rand(1, 10), 'r--', 'LineWidth', 2);
legend('Blue Solid Line', 'Red Dashed Line');

% Set line style
legend('Location', 'northwest', 'LineStyle', {'-', '--'});

**Code Logic Analysis:**

* `figure` creates a new figure window.
* `plot` draws two lines, one blue solid line and one red dashed line.
* `legend` creates a legend with labels for the two lines.
* `legend('Location', 'northwest', 'LineStyle', {'-', '--'})` sets the line styles in the legend to solid and