How to put the legend outside the plot

How to Put the Legend Outside the Plot 📊

If you're looking to make your plots look sleek and professional, one thing you might want to do is move the legend outside the plot area. This can help to declutter your plot and make better use of the available space. In this article, we'll walk you through the process of moving the legend outside the plot in a straightforward and easy way. Let's dive in! 💪

The Problem 😕

So you have a series of 20 plots to be made in a single figure, and you want the legend outside the box. However, you don't want to change the axes or reduce the size of the figure. That's a tricky situation, but fear not! We've got you covered with a solution that will make your legend look fabulous without compromising the overall design.

Solution 1: Keep the Legend Box Outside the Plot Area 📏

To keep the legend box outside the plot area, you can use the bbox_to_anchor parameter in your plotting library. This parameter allows you to define the position of the legend relative to the plot area. Here's an example of how you can achieve this in Python using Matplotlib:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Create your plot here
fig, ax = plt.subplots()

# Plot your data here

# Move the legend outside the plot area
ax.legend(bbox_to_anchor=(1.04, 0.5), loc="center left", borderaxespad=0)

# Show your plot
plt.show()

In this example, the bbox_to_anchor parameter is set to (1.04, 0.5), which means the legend box will be placed slightly to the right of the plot area. You can adjust these coordinates to fit your specific needs.

Solution 2: Reduce the Font Size of the Legend Text 📝

If you want to reduce the size of the legend box, you can also decrease the font size of the text inside it. Fortunately, most plotting libraries provide an easy way to achieve this. Here's how you can do it using Matplotlib:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Create your plot here
fig, ax = plt.subplots()

# Plot your data here

# Customize the legend font size
legend = ax.legend()
for text in legend.get_texts():
    text.set_fontsize(8)  # Adjust the font size here as needed

# Show your plot
plt.show()

In this example, we iterate over each text element in the legend and set its font size using the set_fontsize() method. Feel free to experiment and tweak the font size until you achieve the desired result.

Conclusion 🎉

Moving the legend outside the plot area is a great way to enhance the visual appeal of your plots. By using the bbox_to_anchor parameter and adjusting the font size of the legend text, you can create clean and professional-looking visualizations.

Now it's your turn! Give these solutions a try and let us know how it goes. Feel free to share your awesome plots with us and engage in the comments below. Happy plotting! 😄📈