Getting symbols in graph legends 2

[tku17adam]

Hi,

I cannot find a way of getting symbols into the legend box on an excel plot. For example, I wish to name a legend "lambda 1" but want to display the lamda symbol and not the word. I can find ways of getting symbols into the graph title and axix labels, but not the legend. This seems such a simple thing to do that I cant believe its not possible. I keep having to draw a text box onto the graph but this seems a bodge. Any help? Thanks.

 

[IRstuff]

Click on the legend
Click on the specific entry
Change the font to Symbol

TTFN

 

[tku17adam]

What I didn't make clear in my original post above was that I want to be able to have a mixture of normal fonts and symbols in a series name/legend. For example "45 degrees" but using the symbol for degree. Excel doesnt allow you to pick a single character within a series name in order to change its font, you can either select them all or none of them.

 

[SWComposites]

2 things you can do:

1) use ascii codes to enter the specidal characters. i.e., for a degree symbol, hold down the Alt key and type 0176 on the numerical keypad (not top row of keyboard). Look up the ascii codes for the extended characters for a font using the CharacterMap app (charmap.exe) that comes with Windows (or look in the Word/Excel help file for the table of ascii codes).

2) Enter the legend into a cell on a worksheet, format it as you want, then link the series label to the cell. You can also use this method to build up a character string for a legend, title, axis title, etc.

 

[tku17adam]

Thanks for the above. I have tried both but neither work.

I can enter symbols on thier own but I cannot enter them mixed within normal font characters. If you pre-enter the series name in a separate cell then when you select that cell as being the name of the series it standardises the font - i.e. makes it all ariel or times etc. Taking an editing route doesnt work as once the legend is selected and seen on the graph then the ony editing that can be done to it is its size, colour and font etc but only to the entire label - it doesn not allow you to select just a single character for editing.

 

[johnwm]

Right-click on the Chart and select Source Data. You can then edit the Series titles on the Series tab either by typing in the Name editbox or by selecting a cell that contains your required text

Good Luck
johnwm
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[jghrist]

I am able to use the ASCII [Alt] symbols either directly in the series titles or in a referenced cell. The formatting of all legend text seems to be governed by a common Format Legend which does not allow formatting one series differently let alone part of one series legend. If a referenced cell is use, it doesn't matter what the format of the referenced cell is.