Hiding a Chart's Legend

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated January 30, 2014)

A chart's legend is used to explain the various colors or patterns used in a chart. By default, Sheets displays a legend with charts you create. You, however, may not want to include a chart. For instance, it may not make sense to include a chart if there are so few data series in your chart that it is self-explanatory.

To get rid of the chart legend, follow these steps:

  1. Insert your chart as you normally would.
  2. Click once on the legend area of the chart. Sheets displays a control area for the legend. (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. Modifying the legend location.

  3. Click the positioning control, which defaults to Right. Sheets displays a variety of locations where it can place the legend.
  4. Click once on the None option. (Yes, Sheets apparently considers "None" a location.) Sheets immediately hides the legend.
  5. Click elsewhere in your spreadsheet to accept your changes.

If you later want to display a legend you previously hid, right-click anywhere in the chart and choose Legend from the resulting Context menu. The legend is immediately displayed and you can make changes to its appearance, as desired.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Understanding Outlining

Outlining, a feature built into Excel, can be a great way to help organize large amounts of data. This tip provides an ...

Discover More

Renaming a Toolbar

Create your own toolbars and, at some point, you may have a hankering to change their names. Here's how you can make the ...

Discover More

Expanding PivotTable Rows to Sheets

PivotTables are a great way to work with large quantities of data in an intelligent manner. Sometimes, however, you just ...

Discover More
More DriveTips

Saving a Spreadsheet Locally in a Non-Sheets Format

Need to share your spreadsheet with others who may not be using Google Sheets? Here's an easy way to export your ...

Discover More

Turning Off Gridlines

The purpose of gridlines is to make it easy to identify and select cells in a spreadsheet. If you find the gridlines to ...

Discover More

Using Find and Replace in a Spreadsheet

As your spreadsheets get larger, it can be hard to find some information. You may also want to replace some existing ...

Discover More
Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is seven minus 2?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR AUTHORS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2019 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.