Comments on: Legends in Excel Charts – Formats, Size, Shape, and Position

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 03:20:37 +0000

Larry -

Good point. The article mentioned in passing that you can move the legend, but now it explicitly states that the legend can be clicked on and manually dragged to a new location.

By: Larry Caretto

Larry Caretto — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:31:59 +0000

I may have missed this point in your discussion, but I have found that once a legend is created, it can be dragged anywhere in chart/plot area. In particular, when I have data whose plots gives space in the plot area, I like to drag the legend into the plot area and increase the plot area to fill the entire chart area. This is especially useful when space requirements limit the size of a chart.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 01:33:20 +0000

Shadowfax -

If you have a great many series, you may need to change the height of the legend, to display more rows of legend entries, as well as the width of the legend, to display more columns.

By: Shadowfax

Shadowfax — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 09:41:30 +0000

Hi,

The legend on my chart does not show/list all the data series which I have plotted in the chart. Initially I thought it was a size issue, and I’ve tried to resize it, but that didn’t work. Please help.

Thanks!

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:53:05 +0000

SpeedBall -

Great idea. I may just post that as a complete routine when I have a chance.

By: SpeedBall

SpeedBall — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:15:51 +0000

My data required me to put the labels at the start of the series (the series are converging in the end) which made the data labels to overlay on themselves. I've added following bit of code for it to decide on its own what is the best place to put labels (start or end)...decision is based on stdev of the first and last data values.

Dim xrange1, xrange2 As Variant
      
      If ActiveChart Is Nothing Then
        MsgBox "Select a chart and try again.", vbExclamation, "No Chart Selected"
        Exit Sub
      Else
        
        k = 0
        tot = ActiveChart.SeriesCollection.Count
        ReDim xrange1(1 To 1, 1 To tot)
        ReDim xrange2(1 To 1, 1 To tot)
        
        For Each mySrs In ActiveChart.SeriesCollection
            k = k + 1
            xrange1(1, k) = mySrs.Values(1)
            xrange2(1, k) = mySrs.Values(mySrs.Points.Count)
        Next mySrs
        
        stdev1 = WorksheetFunction.StDev(xrange1)
        stdev2 = WorksheetFunction.StDev(xrange2)
        
        For Each mySrs In ActiveChart.SeriesCollection
          bLabeled = False
          With mySrs
            ptcount = .Points.Count
            If stdev1 > stdev2 Then
                startpt = 1
                endpt = ptcount
                xstp = 1
            Else
                startpt = ptcount
                endpt = 1
                xstp = -1
            End If
            
            For iPts = startpt To endpt Step xstp