.. note:: :class: sphx-glr-download-link-note Click :ref:`here ` to download the full example code .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-example-title .. _sphx_glr_gallery_text_labels_and_annotations_custom_legends.py: ======================== Composing Custom Legends ======================== Composing custom legends piece-by-piece. .. note:: For more information on creating and customizing legends, see the following pages: * :doc:`/tutorials/intermediate/legend_guide` * :doc:`/gallery/text_labels_and_annotations/legend_demo` Sometimes you don't want a legend that is explicitly tied to data that you have plotted. For example, say you have plotted 10 lines, but don't want a legend item to show up for each one. If you simply plot the lines and call ``ax.legend()``, you will get the following: .. code-block:: default # sphinx_gallery_thumbnail_number = 2 from matplotlib import rcParams, cycler import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import numpy as np # Fixing random state for reproducibility np.random.seed(19680801) N = 10 data = [np.logspace(0, 1, 100) + np.random.randn(100) + ii for ii in range(N)] data = np.array(data).T cmap = plt.cm.coolwarm rcParams['axes.prop_cycle'] = cycler(color=cmap(np.linspace(0, 1, N))) fig, ax = plt.subplots() lines = ax.plot(data) ax.legend(lines) .. image:: /gallery/text_labels_and_annotations/images/sphx_glr_custom_legends_001.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-script-out Out: .. code-block:: none Note that one legend item per line was created. In this case, we can compose a legend using Matplotlib objects that aren't explicitly tied to the data that was plotted. For example: .. code-block:: default from matplotlib.lines import Line2D custom_lines = [Line2D([0], [0], color=cmap(0.), lw=4), Line2D([0], [0], color=cmap(.5), lw=4), Line2D([0], [0], color=cmap(1.), lw=4)] fig, ax = plt.subplots() lines = ax.plot(data) ax.legend(custom_lines, ['Cold', 'Medium', 'Hot']) .. image:: /gallery/text_labels_and_annotations/images/sphx_glr_custom_legends_002.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-script-out Out: .. code-block:: none There are many other Matplotlib objects that can be used in this way. In the code below we've listed a few common ones. .. code-block:: default from matplotlib.patches import Patch from matplotlib.lines import Line2D legend_elements = [Line2D([0], [0], color='b', lw=4, label='Line'), Line2D([0], [0], marker='o', color='w', label='Scatter', markerfacecolor='g', markersize=15), Patch(facecolor='orange', edgecolor='r', label='Color Patch')] # Create the figure fig, ax = plt.subplots() ax.legend(handles=legend_elements, loc='center') plt.show() .. image:: /gallery/text_labels_and_annotations/images/sphx_glr_custom_legends_003.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. _sphx_glr_download_gallery_text_labels_and_annotations_custom_legends.py: .. only :: html .. container:: sphx-glr-footer :class: sphx-glr-footer-example .. container:: sphx-glr-download :download:`Download Python source code: custom_legends.py ` .. container:: sphx-glr-download :download:`Download Jupyter notebook: custom_legends.ipynb ` .. only:: html .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-signature Keywords: matplotlib code example, codex, python plot, pyplot `Gallery generated by Sphinx-Gallery `_