How can I modify the lengh of the lines in a LEGEND?

I would like to reduce the length of the lines shown in the legend of a plot in MATLAB.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

The following example code illustrates how you can reduce the length of the lines shown in the legend of a plot:

In MATLAB R2014b and later

h1 = plot(1:10);
[hh,icons,plots,txt] = legend({'Line 1'});
p1 = icons(1).Position;

icons(1).Position = [0.3 p1(2) 0];
icons(2).XData = [0.05 0.2];

In MATLAB R2014a and before

plot(rand(2))
lh = legend('Line 1','Line 2');
ch = get(lh,'children');

xd = get(ch(2),'XData');
set(ch(2),'XData',[xd(1)+0.2 xd(2)])

[Rik]

@quan zhang You should repost your comment as an answer, otherwise your solution will become hidden by other comments.

[Cris LaPierre]

Moving comment from Deepak Sapkota accidentally added as a flag.

Thank you Quan. Your code worked for me to change the legend length.

[Rik]

@Gergely Szabó did you use the code for R2014a and before? As you can see below, the example runs as expected on R2020b.

h1 = plot(1:10);
[hh,icons,plots,txt] = legend({'Line 1'});

h2 = plot(1:10);
[hh,icons,plots,txt] = legend({'Line 1'});
p2 = icons(1).Position;
icons(1).Position = [0.3 p2(2) 0];
icons(2).XData = [0.05 0.2];

Answer 2

[Brandon Ballard]

Just to make it easier for people to find I have copied the approach listed in the comments which works for versions of Matlab R2018b onwards (I am currently using Matlab 2021a):

Arpan Sircar on 29 Mar 2019

The simplest way to do it is to use: -

leg = legend('Plot1','Plot2',...);

leg.ItemTokenSize = [x1,x2];

By default x1=30 and x2=18 so put larger or smaller numbers as x1,x2 to increase or decrease the legend line size.

quan zhang on 17 Sep 2019

I can only modulate the length, not the width by using" leg = legend('Plot1','Plot2',...);

leg.ItemTokenSize = [x1,x2];"