# Manually create legend in Plots.jl

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/manually-create-legend-in-plots-jl/84925>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** question, plotting, plots\
**Created:** [July 28, 2022, 3:48pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/manually-create-legend-in-plots-jl/84925 "2022-07-28T15:48:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Christopher\_Fisher](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/christopher_fisher/32/26132_2.png) [@Christopher\_Fisher](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Christopher_Fisher)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 3:48pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/manually-create-legend-in-plots-jl/84925/1 "2022-07-28T15:48:21Z")

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Hi all,

I have a plot with a gradient build from a large series of subplots. I would like to manually add a legend independent of the underlying series data. The legend might show a colored line paired with a label:

(blue line) x1  
(red line) x2

I have been struggling to get this to work. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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**Author:** ![rafael.guerra](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/rafael.guerra/32/216610_2.png) [@rafael.guerra](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rafael.guerra)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 6:02pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/manually-create-legend-in-plots-jl/84925/2 "2022-07-28T18:02:43Z")

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A simple workaround to do this is to plot!() red and blue lines outside the current view area, by imposing in the plot command xlims=xlims(p), ylims=ylims(p) obtained from the previous plot object p.

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**Author:** ![Christopher\_Fisher](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/christopher_fisher/32/26132_2.png) [@Christopher\_Fisher](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Christopher_Fisher)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 11:24pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/manually-create-legend-in-plots-jl/84925/3 "2022-07-28T23:24:44Z")

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As always, thanks for the suggestion. For some reason the legend includes labels from the data series of the first plot. Here is an example based on your code:

> **Summary**
>
> ```julia
> using Distributions, SmoothingSplines, Plots; 
> pyplot()
> 
> f(x) = sin(x) # baseline function for this example
> 
> # GENERATE INPUT DATA:
> σy = 1.0 # stdev relative to curve f(x)
> npoints = 100
> nsamples = 50
> X = vcat([rand(Uniform(0, 4π), npoints) for _ in 1:nsamples]...)
> Y = @. f.(X) + rand(Normal(0, σy*abs(cos(X))+0.1)) # variable stdev
> 
> # FIT NORMAL DISTRIBUTIONS WITH PARAMETERS: μ(x) and σ(x)
> nx = 100; # number of divisions of x-axis to estimate distribution
> x = LinRange(0, 4π, nx)
> xᵢ = [(x[i], x[i+1]) for i in 1:length(x)-1]
> x₀ = mean.(xᵢ)
> μ = similar(x₀); σ = similar(x₀)
> for (i,xᵢ) in pairs(xᵢ)
> ix = xᵢ[1] .<= X .<= xᵢ[2]
> h = fit(Normal, Y[ix])
> μ[i] = h.μ; σ[i] = h.σ
> end
> 
> # FIT SMOOTHING SPLINES TO ABOVE
> using SmoothingSplines
> splμ = fit(SmoothingSpline,x₀, μ, 0.05) # λ=0.05
> splσ = fit(SmoothingSpline,x₀, σ, 0.02) # λ=0.02
> μp = SmoothingSplines.predict(splμ, x₀)
> σp = SmoothingSplines.predict(splσ, x₀)
> 
> # PLOT DATA:
> p1 = scatter(X,Y, ms=1, msw=-0, mc=:blue, label=false)
> plot!(f, lc=:cyan, lw=1.5, label="sin(x) baseline")
> plot!(x₀, μ, lc=:red, lw=1, ls=:dash, label="mean μ(x)")
> plot!(x₀, σ, lc=:lime, lw=1, ls=:dash, label="stdev σ(x)")
> plot!(x₀, μp, lc=:red, lw=1, label="spline μp(x)")
> plot!(x₀, σp, lc=:lime, lw=1, label="spline σp(x)")
> 
> # PLOT RIBBONS WITH ALPHA TRANSPARENCY SCALED:
> N = 300 # number of ribbon slices
> qq = @. quantile(Normal(μp, σp), LinRange(0.01, 0.99,N))
> α = [LinRange(0.01,0.4,N÷2); LinRange(0.4,0.01,N÷2)]
> p2 = plot(legend=false)
> for i in 2:N-1
> yᵢ = getindex.(qq, i)
> dy = yᵢ - getindex.(qq, i-1)
> plot!(x₀, yᵢ - dy/2, lw=0, color=:blue, fillalpha=α[i], ribbon=dy)
> end
> p2
> temp = [-10 -20; -30 -40]
> plot!(p2, temp, ylims = (-3,3), leg=true, label = ["a" "b"])
> 
> ```

Is there any way to suppress the legend from the first data series?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rafael.guerra](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/rafael.guerra/32/216610_2.png) [@rafael.guerra](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rafael.guerra)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 11:31pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/manually-create-legend-in-plots-jl/84925/4 "2022-07-28T23:31:32Z")

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Try setting `label=false` in the previous plots.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Christopher\_Fisher](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/christopher_fisher/32/26132_2.png) [@Christopher\_Fisher](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Christopher_Fisher)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 11:39pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/manually-create-legend-in-plots-jl/84925/5 "2022-07-28T23:39:39Z")

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Thanks for your help. I didn’t know that label can be set to false. I put together a MWE based on your solution.

```julia
using Plots
x = rand(10)
plot(x, label = false)
temp = [-10 -20; -30 -40]
plot!(temp, ylims=(0,1), color=[:green :red], label=["a" "b"])

```