Excel: Preventing a Series from Displaying Within a Legend

ID: Q78838

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 3.0, 4.0, 4.0a, 5.0
Microsoft Excel for OS/2, version 3.0
Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh, versions 3, 0, 4.0, 5.0

SUMMARY

When a legend is added to a chart in Microsoft Excel, a symbol and series name is included for each series in the chart. In versions of Microsoft Excel earlier than version 5.0, there is no built-in command to exclude a series from displaying within the chart legend. However, the method shown below will prevent a series from displaying within a legend.

NOTE: In Microsoft Excel version 5.0, you can select legend entries and format, edit or remove them individually.

MORE INFORMATION

The legend pattern is the same as the pattern for the series it represents. The series will not be visible in the legend or the chart when:

The border and area for the series are set to none.

The series name has been edited to be blank.

To display the series in the chart, but not in the legend, do the following:

Select the desired series.

From the Format menu, choose Patterns. Select None under both Border and Area. (Choose None under both Line and Marker if you are working with a Line or Scatter chart.) Choose OK. The series will now be invisible but will still be selected.

With the entire series still selected, press the RIGHT ARROW key on your keyboard to select the first data point in the series.

From the Format menu, choose Patterns and change the Border and Area (or Line and Marker) options to the desired pattern and border. Choose OK.

Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the remaining data points in the series.

At this point, the symbol is not visible in the legend even though the series is visible in the chart. The following steps will remove the series name from the legend:

From the Chart menu, choose Edit Series.

Select the appropriate series from the Series box.

Enter ="" in the Name box. Choose OK.

The series name and data marker will no longer be visible in the legend; however, the legend contains enough space for the series. There is no way to "compress" the legend to ignore this space.

REFERENCES

"Microsoft Excel User's Guide," version 3.0, page 453

Additional query words: 3.0

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