How do I edit legend entries in Excel?
Thread poster: Jana Teteris
Jana Teteris
Jana Teteris  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:35
Latvian to English
+ ...
Dec 26, 2005

I am working on a translation that is in Excel format and have come across a couple of 'legend entries' that need to be translated. Unfortunately I don't have much experience with Excel, and can't work out how to edit (ie. translate) these entries. Can anyone help?

 
Natalie
Natalie  Identity Verified
Poland
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English to Russian
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Hi Jana Dec 26, 2005

Have you tried double-clicking at the legends? This way you should enter the edit mode.

 
Jana Teteris
Jana Teteris  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:35
Latvian to English
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TOPIC STARTER
Yes Dec 26, 2005

That's the first thing I tried and it doesn't work.

 
Victor Potapov
Victor Potapov
Russian Federation
Local time: 02:35
English to Russian
+ ...
Or else try editing the row (column?) headings in the "source data" area... Dec 26, 2005

Hi Jana,

You can double-click on the legend entries as Natalie mentioned earlier - or you can go into the source area of the chart/graph/diagram (it is one of the tabs in "chart properties" window - or you can find this data area in a number of other ways).

The idea is to change/translate the headings of the columns or rows (depending on how your data is arranged in the source table) - and theoretically Excel should change the legend captions in the chart using this da
... See more
Hi Jana,

You can double-click on the legend entries as Natalie mentioned earlier - or you can go into the source area of the chart/graph/diagram (it is one of the tabs in "chart properties" window - or you can find this data area in a number of other ways).

The idea is to change/translate the headings of the columns or rows (depending on how your data is arranged in the source table) - and theoretically Excel should change the legend captions in the chart using this data area.

Hope this helps!

Victor.

Jana Teteris wrote:

I am working on a translation that is in Excel format and have come across a couple of 'legend entries' that need to be translated. Unfortunately I don't have much experience with Excel, and can't work out how to edit (ie. translate) these entries. Can anyone help?
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Natalie
Natalie  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 00:35
Member (2002)
English to Russian
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MODERATOR
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Jana Dec 26, 2005

Then could you please provide more details where this legend is in your file? I assumed it is a legend to a figure/chart but in case it is not, it may be in the headers/footers or maybe in comments. Is it greyed out? Try going to edit > headers and footers or to edit > comments in order to find out where these legends are located.

 
Jana Teteris
Jana Teteris  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:35
Latvian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Middle of the sheet Dec 26, 2005

Natalie wrote:

Then could you please provide more details where this legend is in your file? I assumed it is a legend to a figure/chart but in case it is not, it may be in the headers/footers or maybe in comments. Is it greyed out? Try going to edit > headers and footers or to edit > comments in order to find out where these legends are located.


When I double-click on the legend then a formatting window appears, which lets me change the font, colour etc. but not the actual text. The legend appears to the right of a graph in the middle of the sheet. When I click on 'chart options' under the 'charts' tab I can change the title & axes of the graph, but not the legend as the original text doesn't appear. I also checked under headers-footers & comments, but the legend doesn't appear there either.

More confused than ever now...


 
Jackie Bowman
Jackie Bowman

Local time: 19:35
Spanish to English
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Editing Excel legend Dec 26, 2005

Jana Teteris wrote:

More confused than ever now...




Jana,

I am assuming that the Excel chart is within Word or some other word processing package. If that is the case, whether you can change the legend depends on (i) whether the chart is still linked to the Excel file on which it is based or (ii) whether the chart has simply been embedded into the Word file. If the latter is the case, you cannot change the legend. You need the original Excel data sheet to change the legend.

If (i) is the case, when you click on the chart it should convert to the Excel spreadsheet, but still within a frame in the Word file. At the bottom of the frame, there should be tabs labeled ‘chart’, ‘sheet 1’, sheet 2’ etc. Click on one of the ‘sheets’. That should give you the accrual Excel data. In one of the ‘sheets’ (usually the first one), you should be able to see the labels for the legend in one of the columns. You simply over-write that in the target language and click on the ‘chart’ tab at the bottom. Then click outside the frame, so that the chart reappears in its normal place in the Word file. The legend should have changed.

Best of luck.


 
Natalie
Natalie  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 00:35
Member (2002)
English to Russian
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Dataset titles Dec 26, 2005

Hi Jana,

1) Right-click on white space of the image, somewhere above the legends (so that the whole graph is selected) and then choose 'source data' (this option is the third from the top).

2) Choose the 'series' tab, and in the opened window you'll see a small copy of the graph, and below it the list of the data series (to the left) and the titles of the series (to the right).

The first series will be chosen by default, and it's title shown to the right. <
... See more
Hi Jana,

1) Right-click on white space of the image, somewhere above the legends (so that the whole graph is selected) and then choose 'source data' (this option is the third from the top).

2) Choose the 'series' tab, and in the opened window you'll see a small copy of the graph, and below it the list of the data series (to the left) and the titles of the series (to the right).

The first series will be chosen by default, and it's title shown to the right.
To see (and translate) the other titles you should choose the corresponding series from the list in the left part of the window.

HTH,
Natalia
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Jana Teteris
Jana Teteris  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:35
Latvian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thankyou Natalie! Dec 26, 2005

Natalie wrote:

Hi Jana,

1) Right-click on white space of the image, somewhere above the legends (so that the whole graph is selected) and then choose 'source data' (this option is the third from the top).

2) Choose the 'series' tab, and in the opened window you'll see a small copy of the graph, and below it the list of the data series (to the left) and the titles of the series (to the right).

The first series will be chosen by default, and it's title shown to the right.
To see (and translate) the other titles you should choose the corresponding series from the list in the left part of the window.

HTH,
Natalia


A public thankyou to Natalie! She very kindly took a look at the file which I e-mailed to her and managed to solve my dilemma.


 
pmakinen
pmakinen  Identity Verified
Local time: 16:35
Member (2005)
Croatian to English
+ ...
I Like These Replies Mar 28, 2007

But what does one do when the references to other Excel files are broken (i.e., the client did not preserve the directory structure and just sent a heap of spreadsheets in no discernible order)?

Excel will not let you exit the Legend -> Series dialog box if *any* of the references in the dialog box are broken...

Am I really left with Photoshop/Corel Draw as my only option in this case?


 
susancd
susancd
United States
Use Format Data Series or Format Trend Lines or Dec 13, 2013

Changing data labels
This is can be done in the original data, but you can also right click on your data line on the chart, select ‘Select Data…’, in the box labeled ‘Name’.
Change labels of trendlines
Right click on trendline, select Format trendline, Select Options and you can change the name from automatic to custom and type in the new name.


 
Maxime Bujakov
Maxime Bujakov  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 00:35
French to English
+ ...
same problem - external links Oct 26, 2016

pmakinen wrote:

But what does one do when the references to other Excel files are broken (i.e., the client did not preserve the directory structure and just sent a heap of spreadsheets in no discernible order)?

Excel will not let you exit the Legend -> Series dialog box if *any* of the references in the dialog box are broken...



Yell at the customer
Seriously, thank you for mentioning this case - I suffer from the same


 


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How do I edit legend entries in Excel?






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