55

In order to fill the area between two complex curves I use tables and the vertcat command (see Fill between two curves in pgfplots.).

Now I don't want the plotted area to appear in my legend, just the two curves. Is there any command to prevent the yellow area plot from being added to my legend? this could be a minimal example:

\documentclass{article} \usepackage{pgfplots} 
\begin{document} \begin{tikzpicture}
  \begin{axis}[area style,axis on top]
    \addplot+[mark=none,fill=yellow,draw=none] {0.1*x^2} \closedcycle;
    \addplot[mark=none,draw=red,line legend] {0.1*x^2};
    \addplot[mark=none,draw=blue,line legend] {0.0*x^2};
    \legend{red curve,blue curve};
    % \legend{\empty,red curve,blue curve};
  \end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture} \end{document}

With this legend{...}-command the last plot is skipped, an additional \empty doesn't help, too.

Sadly, drawing the first to plots together with fill=yellow,draw=red is not an option for me. Does anybody know any inside hacks? As far as I know, there is no command shown in the manual. Thanks in advance.

Community
  • 1
kromuchi
  • 2,187

2 Answers2

82

Adding the option forget plot to the plot you do not want shown does the trick.

\documentclass{article} \usepackage{pgfplots} 
\begin{document} \begin{tikzpicture}
  \begin{axis}[area style,axis on top]
    \addplot+[mark=none,fill=yellow,draw=none,forget plot] {0.1*x^2} \closedcycle;
    \addplot[mark=none,draw=red,line legend] {0.1*x^2};
    \addplot[mark=none,draw=blue,line legend] {0.0*x^2};
    \legend{red curve,blue curve};
  \end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture} \end{document}

forget plot pgfplots

Alternatively, you could use an empty entry in the \legend list for the plot you want to exclude from the legend:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pgfplots} 
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \begin{axis}[axis on top]
    \addplot [area style,fill=yellow,draw=none] {0.1*x^2} \closedcycle;
    \addplot [draw=red] {0.1*x^2};
    \addplot [draw=blue] {0.0*x^2};
    \legend{,red curve,blue curve};
  \end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
Jake
  • 232,450
  • 3
    Is forget plot the only way to avoid a legend. The reason I ask is because forget plot has other side effects like for example that symbol and color counter doesn't increase. – alfC Feb 03 '14 at 10:01
  • 2
    @alfC: You can use empty entries in the \legend list to exclude plots. I've edited my answer. – Jake Feb 03 '14 at 10:06
  • It's important also remove the NAN points if exist in order to avoid errors – Bruce_Warrior Aug 03 '17 at 09:11
2

I arrived at this question when I had a similar, but not quite the same problem. I'll include my problem and answer here in case others (or myself in the future) have the same problem and land here.

My problem: I have vertically stacked plots, on the top plot I have 4 series (let's assume they are '1' in red, '2' in blue, '3' in green and '4' in black). I have a legend on the top plot, labelling all 4 series.

In my subsequent plots I only plot some of the series (say '2' and '4'). The problem is that I'm using a cycle list to define the plot styles, so I effectively want to 'skip' a plot style before plotting 2, and between plotting 2 and 4.

I haven't found a very satisfactory way of doing this, but one work-around that works for me is to plot nan (not a number) data for the plots I don't want to appear.

Stand-alone example of this work-around given below:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pgfplots} 
\begin{document}

    \pgfplotscreateplotcyclelist{my plot list}{
        color=red\\
        color=blue\\
        color=green\\
        color=black\\}

\begin{tikzpicture}
  \begin{axis}[ axis on top,
                height=0.8\linewidth,
                width=0.8\linewidth,
                at={(0.5\linewidth,0.35\linewidth)},
                cycle list name=my plot list,
                xticklabels={\empty}]
    \addplot
        table[row sep=crcr]{%
            0.1 0.0\\
            0.2 0.0\\
            0.3 0.0\\
        };

     \addplot
         table[row sep=crcr]{%
            0.1 0.1\\
            0.2 0.2\\
            0.3 0.3\\
         };

     \addplot
         table[row sep=crcr]{%
            0.1 0.2\\
            0.2 0.4\\
            0.3 0.6\\
         };     

     \addplot
         table[row sep=crcr]{%
            0.1 -0.1\\
            0.2 -0.2\\
            0.3 -0.3\\
         };

    \legend{1, 2, 3, 4};
  \end{axis}

  \begin{axis}[ axis on top,
                height=0.8\linewidth,
                width=0.8\linewidth,
                at={(0.5\linewidth,-0.35\linewidth)},
                cycle list name=my plot list]

    \addplot
        table[row sep=crcr]{%
            nan nan\\
        };

    \addplot
        table[row sep=crcr]{%
            0.1 0.1\\
            0.2 0.2\\
            0.3 0.3\\
        };

    \addplot
        table[row sep=crcr]{%
            nan nan\\
        };      

    \addplot
        table[row sep=crcr]{%
            0.1 -0.1\\
            0.2 -0.2\\
            0.3 -0.3\\
        };

  \end{axis}

\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
kabdulla
  • 121