# Legend Plotting

## Introduction

Legends are an important part of any scientific plot. If enabled, Magics tries to build a legend automatically from the data provided. In most cases this is sufficient. Where not Magics offers further parameters to customise the legend.

Magics++

In previous versions of Magics, the legend parameter LEGEND_ENTRY_PLOT_DIRECTION was automatically adjusted to `COLUMN` or `ROW` depending on the aspect ratio of the legend box. After user feedback, it was decided to take this automatic adjustment out to give more control to users in case of more complex legends. The default is now `ROW`. If the legend box has a vertical layout, the user can set the LEGEND_ENTRY_PLOT_DIRECTION parameter to `COLUMN`. The parameter LEGEND_COLUMN_COUNT ( default=`1`) will then define the numbers of columns to generate for the legend.