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Formatting the Legend

Chart legend is a box to identify the patterns or colors assigned to the data categories in a chart. A chart legend may contain one or more legend entries, and each entry is composed of a mark and a label. You can show or hide the legend by right-clicking the chart and then selecting Show/Hide legend form the shortcut menu. An indicator chart whose values are represented by images and an organization chart does not have the legend.

To format the legend of a chart:

  1. Right-click any chart element and select Format Legend from the shortcut menu to bring up the Format Legend dialog.

    Format Legend dialog - Fill tab

  2. In the Fill tab, set the color and transparency of the color for the legend (to change the color, click the color image and select a color from the color palette or input the hexadecimal value of a color directly in the text box).
  3. In the Border tab, set the border mode for the legend, including the border style, color, transparency, line style, thickness, end caps style, and line joint mode, and if you specify the line joint mode to be joint round, you can set the the radius for the border joint. You can also specify whether the border is to be outlined, and whether or not to automatically resize the border dashes if the border is drawn with dashes.

    Format Legegnd dialog - Border tab

  4. In the Placement tab, specify the way in which the legend will be placed.

    Format Legegnd dialog - Placement tab

    In the Position box, specify whether the legend will be placed at the left, right, top, or bottom of the chart, and then set the alignment style accordingly in the Alignment box. If Auto is selected, the legend will be placed somewhere automatically.

    In the Legend-Label Gap box, specify the vertical and horizontal margins between the legend entries and the legend boundaries, and the vertical and horizontal spacing between legend entry labels.

    Check Reverse Legend if you want to have the legend entries re-arranged in a reverse order.

    Check Show Scrollbar if you want to show the legend scrollbar to fully view the legend content when the content does not fit into the legend.

    Check Truncate if you want to truncate the legend entry label text when the text overflow the labels.

    Tip: Often it is easier to select the legend and use the grab handles to resize and move the legend as needed anywhere on the chart.
  5. In the Font tab, specify the font formats of the legend entry labels, including the font face, size, color, transparency, rotation angle, shearing angle, and effects such as style, strikeout, underline and so on (to change the color, click the color image and select a color from the color palette or input the hexadecimal value of a color directly in the text box).

    Format Legend dialog - Font tab

  6. In the Orientation tab, set an angle for legend entry labels so as to rotate them. You can either drag the Text hand in the Orientation box or type a value in the Angle spinner to set the angle.

    Format Legend dialog - Orientation tab

  7. In the Format tab, specify the data format of the legend entry labels. However, the settings in this tab take effect only when the property Label Format Source of the chart legend in the Report Inspector has been set to Legend Label Format.

    Format Legend dialog - Format tab

    Select a category from the Category box, then select a format from the Format box and click Add to add it to the Stack box. You can add more than one format, and in the event that one of the formats is not necessary, you can clear it by clicking Remove.

  8. In the Mark tab, specify the options for the legend entry marks.

    Format Legend dialog - Mark tab

  9. For a chart in a library component, you can define web behaviors on its legend in the Behaviors tab.

    Format Legend dialog for library component - Behavior tab

    Select a trigger event from the drop-down list in the Events column, then click in the Actions column and click Choose button that appears in the text box to open the Web Action List dialog, where you can bind a web action to the legend which will be triggered when the specified event occurs on the legend. The web actions you can bind include Filter, Sort, Parameter, Property and SendMessage. For details about these web actions, refer to Applying Web Actions to a Label.

    To add a web behavior line, click Add button, and if a web behavior is not required, click Remove button to remove it.

    Click Move Up button or Move Down button to adjust the order of the behaviors. Then, when an event that has been bound with more than one action happens, the upper action will be triggered first.

  10. When done, click OK to apply the settings and close the dialog.

See also the Format Legend dialog for page report, web report, or library component for detailed explanation about options in the dialog.

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