How to Add a Legend in Excel (2 Easy Ways)

Adding Legend is a quite handy feature of Excel. Legend can help you recognize the same collection of data series across multiple categories. In this article, we’ll learn how to add a Legend in Excel.

What Is a Legend in Excel?

A Legend is a way of presenting the entities of specific regions of a chart or data table. By default, it often appears on the bottom of the chart or sometimes on the right side of the chart. Normally, different colors are used to separate different Legends.

In the following picture, we can see the Legend marked inside the red outlined box. For example, the Blue color represents Sales whereas the Orange color portrays Profit in the following screenshot.

How to Add a Legend in Excel: 2 Methods

In the first method, we are going to use a chart to add our Legend. In the second method, we will learn how to add Legend without the help of a chart.

1. Adding Legend with Chart

In the following data set, we have the sales Target of some employees of a company along with their Achieved amount and respective Incentives. We will represent this data set with the help of an Excel chart and we will add Legend to the chart.

Step 1: Create a Basic Chart

First, select the data set and then go to the Insert tab from the ribbon.
After that, choose Insert Column or Bar Chart.
Now, from the drop-down, select Clustered Column.

Step 2: Select Chart Elements

Then, click on any portion of the chart area.
Afterward, click on Chart Elements. It is in the marked area in the following picture.

Now, check the box of Legend from the Chart Element dialogue box. Consequently, Legend will be added to your chart.

Step 3: Reposition the Legends If Necessary

To reposition the Legend, you need to go to Chart Elements.
Afterward, on the Legend option, a big arrow sign will appear. Click on that.
After that, choose your preferred position for the Legend.

Congratulations! You have successfully added Legend to your chart in Excel.

2. Creating Legend Without an Excel Chart

In the following data set, we have a Sales report and an Inventory report of an electronic store. We will represent the data set in the form of a chart. After that, we will add Legend but this time we will do it without the help of the chart.

After following the 3 easy steps to create a legend without an Excel chart, you’ll be able to get the following output.

How to Edit a Legend in Excel

Editing a Legend is a straightforward process. Here, we will edit the font with size, background color, and border of the Legend.

In the following data set, we have sales reports of various flowers from the month of January to June.

Edit Font and Font Size

First, click on the Legend of the chart.
After that, choose your preferred fonts and font size from the Font group under the Home tab.

After that, you will be able to see that, the font and the font size of the Legend have changed.

Customize Legend Border and Background

First, right-click on the Legend from the chart and select Format Legend.

Next, from the Format Legend dialogue box, choose Solid fill from the Fill option.
After that, select your preferred background color.
Afterward, select Solid line from the Border option.

At this stage, you will be able to see your Legend formatted with your preferred background color and border.

Things to Remember

In step 2 of method 1, if you can’t find the Chart Elements option, carefully click on any part of the chart area.
To edit the font and font size of Legend, make sure you select the Legend first. Otherwise, it will increase the font size of the Excel file.

Download Practice Workbook

Adding a Legend.xlsx

Conclusion

Finally, we have come to the end of our article. I truly hope that this article was able to help and guide you regarding how to add a Legend in Excel. Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any queries or recommendations for improving the article’s quality.

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