Creating a Tabular Legend

I would like to create a legend with an additional column for a number to be inserted next to the variable name as follows:

However, I'm unsure as to how I can achieve this layout - I have tried searching for a function like gridlegend, but I cannot get it to work in this format. Any ideas as to how I can get this implemented? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

[Sindar]

Not a good solution, but with some fiddling gets pretty close:

myleg=compose('%-8s%10d',["Boot";"Engine";"Wheel"],[1 3 5]');
myl=legend(myleg)
title(myl,sprintf('%9s   %-12s%s','Line','Location','Number'))

[Ted Baker]

Thanks Sindar, is there a way to add a blank space in the strings? The number 1 is slightly skewed when I plot it. Alternatively is there some way to manually adjust the spacings of elements or columns?

[Sindar]

I saw that and couldn't figure out why it's happening. You can tweak the formatspec in the compose and sprintf.

'%-8s%10d'

says left-justify a string, padding the length to at least 8. Then, (right-justify) a number padding to length at least 10

'%9s   %-12s%s'

says (right-justify) a string, pad to 9; three spaces; left-justify a string, pad to 12; (right-justify) a string, don't pad

[Ted Baker]

Thanks, I managed to manually line it up by adding thin spaces as padding (U+2009).

Answer 2

[Ameer Hamza]

Try this

ax = axes();
hold(ax);
plot(rand(1,10), 'LineWidth', 2);
plot(rand(1,10), 'LineWidth', 2);
plot(rand(1,10), 'LineWidth', 2);

labels1 = {'boot', 'engine', 'wheel'};
labels2 = {'1', '3', '5'};
labels = cellfun(@(x,y) {sprintf('%10s%9s', x, y)}, labels1, labels2);
l = legend(labels, ...
    'FontName', 'FixedWidth');

titles = {'Line', 'Location', 'Number'};
titles = sprintf('%4s%14s%10s', titles{:});
l.Title.String = titles;

Answer 3

[Michael]

@Ameer Hamza Thanks for providing the code snippet and the solution — it's great. Unfortunately, it doesn’t solve my problem because I lose the handles to the plot objects.

I need a solution for two Y-axes using yyaxis left/right, so I’d like to share my workaround as well.

(I’ve removed unnecessary formatting.)

I’m using MATLAB R2025b, while the compiler at the forum is using MATLAB R2025a.

fig1 = figure(1);
ax1 = axes(fig1);

% Left axis time values
yyaxis left

% Plot
p1 = plot(ax1,rand(1,10), 'LineWidth', 2,'LineStyle',':');
hold on 
p2 = plot(ax1,rand(1,10), 'LineWidth', 2,'LineStyle',':');

% Plot propperties
ylabel(ax1,'Lable 1')

yyaxis right

p3 = plot(ax1,rand(1,10), 'LineWidth', 2,'LineStyle','--');
hold on
p4 = plot(ax1,rand(1,10), 'LineWidth', 2,'LineStyle','--');

xlabel(ax1,'X-Label')
ylabel(ax1,'Lable 2')

title(ax1,'My Title}')

plotHandle = [p1,p2,p3,p4];
labels =  {'Left_1','Left_2','Right_1','Right_2'};
leg = legend(ax1,plotHandle,labels,'NumColumns',2);

titles = {'left Y-axis', 'right Y-axis'};
titles = sprintf('%25s%25s', titles{:});
leg.Title.String = titles;

Warning: Error in state of SceneNode.
String scalar or character vector must have valid interpreter syntax:
My Title}