Most charts use some kind of a legend to help readers understand the charted data. Whenever you create a chart in Excel, a legend for the chart is automatically generated at the same time. A chart can be missing a legend if it has been manually removed from the chart, but you can retrieve the missing legend.
This example chart shows a legend explaining the colors for the years 2013, 2014, 2015.
In this article
Add a chart legend
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Click the chart.
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Click Chart Elements
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Select the Legend check box.
The chart now has a visible legend.
Edit legend texts
If the legend names in the chart are incorrect, you can rename the legend entries.
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Click the chart.
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Click Chart Filters
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Select an entry in the Legend Entries (Series) list, and click Edit.
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In the Series Name field, type a new legend entry.
Tip: You can also select a cell from which the text is retrieved. Click the Identify Cell icon
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Click OK.
