How to display only one legend for a figure with multiple plots? (2024)

I got a better solution that the one with b = get(gca,'Children')

From MatLab Documentation under Legend>Specify Charts to Include in Legend

x = linspace(0,3*pi); y1 = sin(x); p1 = plot(x,y1);

hold on y2 = sin(x - pi/4); p2 = plot(x,y2);

y3 = sin(x - pi/2); p3 = plot(x,y3); hold off

legend([p1 p3],'First','Third')

hamid rafiei am 7 Sep. 2022

Adam Danz am 16 Sep. 2022

Here is the answer: menation these line inside legend command 'orientation','horizontal'

example: legend('orientation','horizontal','name1','name2','name3')

some example:

____________Mutiple legend:_______________

t=0:0.001:1;

sig1=2*sin(2*pi*10*t);

sig2=2*cos(2*pi*10*t);

subplot 212;plot(sig1);hold on;plot(sig2);legend('sin','cos')

subplot 211;plot(sig1);hold on;plot(sig2);legend('sin','cos')

____________Single legend___________________

legend('Location','bestoutside','orientation','horizontal','sin','cos')

One can move anywhere from the figure editor.

Attached one more example.

"legend('string1','string2',...) displays a legend in the current axes using the specified strings to label each set of data." ~ Matlab docs.

This is the simplest way of assigning strings to the legend. The docs show other uses.

When you say you have multiple plots, do you mean multiple axis or just multiple data plots within one axis? If you have multiple axis then you can create a unique legend that specifies what you want by using the second method from the docs:

"legend(h,'string1','string2',...) displays a legend on the plot containing the objects identified by the handles in the vector h and uses the specified strings to label the corresponding graphics object (line, barseries, etc.)."

Hi Angus,

Thanks for your reply.

Is there a way to upload a similar figure so you will be able to understand what I mean?

Armel

P.S I'm new to this community

Update

Starting in Matlab r2020b, legends can be positioned relative to figure edges and can contain graphics objects from different subplots created by TiledLayout.

Examples:

• Example of a global legend in a 2x2 tiled layout
• Example of a global legend in a 1x4 tiled layout
• Example of a global legend in a 1x4 subplot