Improper legend box size in MATLAB?

Question

I encountered a problem where the legend box is not automatically sized as the font size changes.

x = [1 4 6 8 0 2 4 7 8]
plot(x)
lngd = legend('Nov 5, 2010 09:00 - 09:01');
set(lngd, 'interpreter','latex', 'fontsize', 10);

generates the following graph

My two problems are

• The box size is too small. The words are out of box. I have tried set(lngd, 'interpreter','latex', 'fontsize', 10, [0 0 10 10]); to enlarge the box, but no luck.
• I wish to move the legend box to the right bottom. I have tried set(lngd, 'southeast', 'interpreter','latex', 'fontsize', 10);, but no luck.

How may I fix these two problems?

Answer 1

1. I cannot reproduce the problem on MATLAB R2010a, R2010b or R2013a. What version do you have?

   I have these defaults in my startup.m:

   set(0,...
       'DefaultFigurePaperPositionMode', 'auto',...
       'DefaultFigurePaperType'    , 'A4',...
       'DefaultFigurePaperUnits'   , 'centimeters',...
       'DefaultFigurePaperPosition', [3 3 8.4 10],...            
       'DefaultAxesFontsize'       , 14,...
       'DefaultTextColor'          , 'black',...
       'DefaultFigureRenderer'     , 'openGl',...
       'DefaultFigurePaperUnits'   , 'centimeters',...
       'DefaultFigurePaperPosition', [3 3 8.4 10],...
       'DefaultAxesFontsize'       , 14,...
       'DefaultAxesFontname'       , 'Times-Roman',...            
       'DefaultTextColor'          , 'black');
   

   Perhaps setting these changes things? (You'd be surprised how much some of these values affect sometimes...)

2. Use

   set(lgnd, 'location', 'southeast', ...);
   

Answer 2

Is there any particular reason that you use 'interpreter', 'latex'? It seems to mess with the boxing of the legend for some MATLAB. You can try to manually change the legend box position and size by setting the Position variable.

x = [1 4 6 8 0 2 4 7 8]
plot(x)
lngd = legend('Nov 5, 2010 09:00 - 09:01');
set(lngd,  'fontsize', 10, 'interpreter','latex','Position', [0.55,0.15,0.35,0.08]);

The Position vector is [left,bottom,width,height] of the box in 0~1 range.

Answer 3

x = [1 4 6 8 0 2 4 7 8]
plot(x)
lngd = legend('Nov 5, 2010 09:00 - 09:01');
set(lngd, 'Location', 'SouthEast'); 
set(lngd, 'interpreter','latex', 'fontsize', 30);

Try this, it works fine in my matlab