How do you just show the text label in plot legend? (e.g. remove a label's line in the legend)

Question

I want to show the text for a line's label in the legend, but not a line too (As shown in the figure below):

I have tried to minimise the legend's line and label, and overwrite only the new-label too (as in the code below). However, the legend brings both back.

    legend = ax.legend(loc=0, shadow=False) 
    for label in legend.get_lines(): 
        label.set_linewidth(0.0) 
    for label in legend.get_texts(): 
        label.set_fontsize(0) 

    ax.legend(loc=0, title='New Title')

Degreeday

You could set the legend.handlelength to 0 - see e.g. here. – Daryl

Thanks @Daryl I had tried code by minimising line and label and overwrite only the label but legend brings both back-> legend = ax.legend(loc=0, shadow=False) for label in legend.get_lines(): label.set_linewidth(0.0) for label in legend.get_texts(): label.set_fontsize(0) ax.legend(loc=0, title='New Title') – Degreeday

@Degreeday You should edit your question to include that code. It is un-readable in a comment. – Hagride

Hi @tcaswell thanks, I have accepted the answer (second part from 'Joe Kington'). Still you want me edit the question. Thanks – Degreeday

Yes, so that future uses can understand what you were asking so they can tell if it is the problem they are having – Hagride

Answer 1

At that point, it's arguably easier to just use annotate.

For example:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

data = np.random.normal(0, 1, 1000).cumsum()

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot(data)
ax.annotate('Label', xy=(-12, -12), xycoords='axes points',
            size=14, ha='right', va='top',
            bbox=dict(boxstyle='round', fc='w'))
plt.show()

However, if you did want to use legend, here's how you'd do it. You'll need to explicitly hide the legend handles in addition to setting their size to 0 and removing their padding.

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

data = np.random.normal(0, 1, 1000).cumsum()

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot(data, label='Label')

leg = ax.legend(handlelength=0, handletextpad=0, fancybox=True)
for item in leg.legendHandles:
    item.set_visible(False)
plt.show()

Toady

Thanks @Joe Kington, Have used your second part of the solution. Since I was using dataframe, couldn't force the label name to desired one by default it takes the column name, so have changed the column name according to desired one and font size is too big when I tried to reduce the size -> legend = ax.legend(loc=0, shadow=False)for label in legend.get_texts(): label.set_fontsize(10) -> the it brings back the old legend, is there anyway to fix this, thanks for your time. – Degreeday

@Degreeday - That's because you're creating a new legend when you call legend = ax.legend(...) the second time. If you want to access the first legend, use ax.get_legend(). – Toady

Answer 2

I found another much simpler solution - simply set the scale of the marker to zero in the legend properties:

plt.legend(markerscale=0)

This is particularly useful in scatter plots, when you don't want the marker to be visually mistaken for a true data point (or even outlier!).

Ciliary

@tsherwen I'm sorry but I don't think this question was specific to a line plot. The title is "How to hide/remove legend line and retain the label" and does not specify that this is intended for a line plot. Also, in theory a line plot can be also created via a scatter plot. Please consider removing the negative marking thanks. – Ciliary

Still shows the legend for the least square line on scatter plot, but it does hide the legend for the points. – Viridian

Answer 3

You can just set the handletextpad and handlelength in the legend via the legend_handler as shown below:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
# Plot up a generic set of lines
x = np.arange( 3 )
for i in x:
    plt.plot( i*x, x, label='label'+str(i), lw=5 )
# Add a legend 
# (with a negative gap between line and text, and set "handle" (line) length to 0)
legend = plt.legend(handletextpad=-2.0, handlelength=0)

Detail on handletextpad and handlelength is in documentation (linked here, & copied below):

handletextpad : float or None

The pad between the legend handle and text. Measured in font-size units. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.handletextpad"].

handlelength : float or None

The length of the legend handles. Measured in font-size units. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.handlelength"].

With the above code:

With a few extra lines the labels can have the same color as their line. just use .set_color() via legend.get_texts().

# Now color the legend labels the same as the lines
color_l = ['blue', 'orange', 'green']
for n, text in enumerate( legend.texts ):
    print( n, text)
    text.set_color( color_l[n] )

Just calling plt.legend() gives:

Migdaliamigeon

Answer 4

Suggesting the best and simple solution: handlelength=0, for example: ax.legend(handlelength=0).

Limburger

That just breaks the layout. – Viridian

Worked for me. Your mileage may vary but this does seem like the simplest solution if it works – Purlieu

Answer 5

For custom legends add lw=0 too

p5 = mpatches.Patch(color="green",  label="r={}".format(cor_rh), lw=0)
p6 = mpatches.Patch(color=p1.get_color(), label="t={}".format(rh_trend), lw=0)
p7 = mpatches.Patch(color=p3.get_color(), label="t={}".format(hx_trend), lw=0)


ln1 = [p5,p6,p7]
host.legend(handles=ln1, loc=1,  labelcolor='linecolor, handlelength=0)

Grafting