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?

Solution 1

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

Solution 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')

Solution 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

Comments

[Ufos]

This works! The most important trick in this answer is 'Location', [0.5 0.85 0.15 0.05] where the latter vector has a following interpretation: [Position_Right_in_pct, Position_Top_in_pct, Horizontal_Stretch Vertical_Stretch]