Get the legend as a separate picture in Matplotlib

To get the legend as a separate picture, we can take the following steps −

• Create x and y points using numpy.

• Using the figure() method, create a new figure, or activate an existing figure for Line plot and Legend plot figures.

• Add an '~.axes.Axes' to the figure as part of a subplot arrangement, using the add_subplot() method at nrow=1, ncols=1 and at index=1.

• Create line1 and line2 using x, y and y1 points.

• Place the legend for line1 and line2, set ordered labels, put at center location.

• Save the figure only with legend using the savefig() method.

Example

import numpy as np from matplotlib import pyplot as plt x = np.linspace(1, 100, 1000) y = np.log(x) y1 = np.sin(x) fig = plt.figure("Line plot") legendFig = plt.figure("Legend plot") ax = fig.add_subplot(111) line1, = ax.plot(x, y, c="red", lw=4, linestyle="dashdot") line2, = ax.plot(x, y1, c="green", lw=1, linestyle="--") legendFig.legend([line1, line2], ["y=log(x)", "y=sin(x)"], loc='center') legendFig.savefig('legend.png')

Output