Get legend as a separate picture in Matplotlib

Question

I\'m developing a Web application and want to display a figure and its legend in different locations on the page. Which means I need to save the legend as a separate png fil

Answer 1

This calculates the size of the legend automatically. If mode == 1, the code is similar to Steve Tjoa's answer, while mode == 2 is similar Andre Holzner's answer.

The loc parameter must be set to 'center' to make it work (but I do not know why this is necessary).

mode = 1
#mode = 2

import pylab
fig = pylab.figure()
if mode == 1:
    lines = fig.gca().plot(range(10), pylab.randn(10), range(10), pylab.randn(10))
    legend_fig = pylab.figure(figsize=(3,2))
    legend = legend_fig.legend(lines, ('one', 'two'), 'center')
if mode == 2:
    fig.gca().plot(range(10), pylab.randn(10), range(10), pylab.randn(10), label='asd')
    legend_fig = pylab.figure()
    legend = pylab.figlegend(*fig.gca().get_legend_handles_labels(), loc = 'center')
legend.get_frame().set_color('0.70')
legend_fig.canvas.draw()
legend_fig.savefig('legend_cropped.png',
    bbox_inches=legend.get_window_extent().transformed(legend_fig.dpi_scale_trans.inverted()))
legend_fig.savefig('legend_original.png')

Original (uncropped) legend:

Cropped legend: