How can I customize the positions of legend elements?

Question

I have a figure with several plots and a legend. Is it possible to change the arrangement of the elements in the legend manually? For example, how could you make a two-column legend?

Answer 1

Of course this is possible. See an explanation here: http://undocumentedmatlab.com/blog/multi-column-grid-legend/

Answer 2

To make a two-column legend, the general consensus seems to be that you need to create two separate legends and manually place them side by side. Solution simplified from discussion here.

x = 1:10;
y1 = rand(1, 10);
y2 = rand(1, 10);

h1 = plot(x, y1, '-');
hold on
h2 = plot(x, y2, '-.r');

ah1 = gca;
ah2 = axes('position',get(gca,'position'), 'visible','off');

legend(ah1, h1, 'Location', [0.5 0.85 0.15 0.05], 'y1')
legend(ah2, h2, 'Location', [0.7 0.85 0.15 0.05], 'y2')

Answer 3

There are two submissions on the MathWorks File Exchange which create multi-column legends for you:

• columnlegend by Simon Henin (which was a MATLAB Central Pick of the Week)
• gridLegend - a multi column format for legends by Adrian Cherry

Answer 4

Besides the submissions mentioned by @gnovice, there is another one on the MathWorks File Exchange which also create multi-column legends

• legendflex: a more flexible legend by Kelly Kearney

Answer 5

In 2018a, legend has a NumColumns parameter; e.g., if h is an array of handles to lines plotted, and leg_names is a cell array of names for each line:

hleg = legend(h, leg_names, 'FontSize', fontsize);
set(hleg, 'NumColumns', 2);
set(hleg, 'Location', 'south');