Stacking or Compressing Legends on Graphs with Lots of Groupings

Question

JMP 14.2.0 on Windows 10.

I'm making XY graphs with a healthy amount of data. I am using a Row Legend to color code on ~50 descrete batch numbers. After mitigating the script from JMP 13 ot 14, the legend now takes up roughly 3x the height of the already large-sized graph. Are there any commands or tricks to compress the space between each legend item to tighten them up or have the legend stack into multiple columns?

MichelleG · Answer

I'm happy to take for granted that you need to legend your graph by all 50 or so batch numbers. The reply from @Thierry_S  gives some hopefully useful ways to edit your legend. But just in case, from a data visualization perspective, I want to ask ... do you really need to show all these different batch numbers in your legend? It's a lot of information to take in visually. It can be hard to identify each of 50 different colors or small shapes without getting any mixed up with each other.

I wonder if you might be trying to illustrate how a small number of batches compare to the rest of your data set, in which case you could make a new column in your table that would have values like {"Batch 1","Batch 2","Batch 19","Other"} to call out the specific items of interest. Or other groupings might be worthwhile for your situation, like a {"Batch 1-10","Batch 11-20", ...} approach. This may help with clarity, and as a side benefit would make your legend fit where you want it to.

Thierry_S · Answer

Hi,

Are you using GraphBuilder or the Fit Y by X platform? In GraphBuilder you can change the font size and the number of stacked items in the legend box by double clicking the header of the legend.
In your case, you could use the batch information in Color By or the Overlay box, then double click on the "Batch" header and format the legend box in a more manageable manner.

Let me know if you have problems with this approach.

Best,

TS