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Relocating the Chart's Legend

Viewing tip: Press the 'Play' button, and then the 'Fullscreen' button on the right.

Excel automatically adds a legend to your charts to help your readers interpret the data.

You can adjust the position of your legend following the instructions in the accompanying video, to satisfy your own stylistic preferences. You can also choose to take the legend off your chart completely.

Often it is helpful for readers to have a legend on the chart, but sometimes it is completely unnecessary and merely clutters the space.

The chart in the accompanying video has two columns for each name and would be hard to interpret without a legend. If there was only Math for example, you would be able to entitle the chart “Exam grades in Math” and remove the legend.

Don’t go crazy trying to perfectly adjust the position of your legend. Most of the time legend positioning is merely a design choice. A legend’s place will rarely affect your chart’s functionality, but on the odd occasion when it does it is helpful to know about this option and be able to apply the appropriate corrections.