---
title: How to work with legends
category: Legend
slug: legend
blurb: Learn how to manage chart legends by renaming, reordering, merging, and recoloring categories in your data.
order: 1
---
# How to work with legends

Legends control how categories are displayed in charts and pivot tables. They are the place to rename, reorder, merge, recolor, and otherwise manage how your data appears.  

You can open the legend in two ways:  
- In a pivot chart: click the **Legend** tab on the right-hand panel  
- In [Manage Column(s)](../preparation/manage-columns): open the column details view and switch to the **Legend** tab  

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### Actions in the legend

You can do the following:  

- **Rename categories** – Click a category name to edit it.  
- **Reorder categories** – Drag to reorder, or click **Reverse Order** to flip the list.  
- **Hide or show categories** – Click the **hide icon** next to a category to exclude it, or the **show icon** to bring it back.  
- **Merge categories** – Select two or more categories (click one at a time or use Shift to select a range), then click **Merge**.  
- **Assign colors** – Click a category's color swatch to assign:  
  - A completely custom color  
  - A color from your current preset  
  - The preset applied to all remaining categories for that column  
- **Ordered vs Independent** – Toggle between:  
  - **Ordered Categories** (treat categories as ordinal, e.g. Likert scales)  
  - **Independent Categories** (treat categories as nominal, e.g. segments)  
- **Clean with AI** – Automatically renames, orders, and optionally merges categories.  
- **Reset to original** – Restore the legend to match the raw data.  

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### Saving and persistence
- After making changes, click **Save**. The chart will update immediately.  
- Changes are **persisted for the column**, not just for one chart.  
  - Example: if you assign custom colors to segment categories, those colors will appear consistently across all charts and exports whenever you pivot by that column.  

![After editing anything in the legend, click save](../../images/legend-still-save@2x.png)  

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### Viewing mappings
If you have renamed or merged categories, click **View Mappings** to see how the original categories from the raw data have been mapped to the new ones.  

![Example of category mappings](../../images/category-mappings@2x.png)  

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### Limitations
- Numeric bins and date bins cannot be edited in the legend. For these, the legend is **read-only**.  
- To change bins, use [Custom binning](../preparation/number-binning).  

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### Example
A survey export includes a text column for "Region" with inconsistent values: "U.S.," "USA," "United States."  
- In the legend, select all three and click **Merge**.  
- Rename the merged category "United States."  
- Assign a custom blue color from your preset.  
- Save your changes.  

All charts and exports will now show a clean, consistent "United States" category.  

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### Key points
- Legends are the central place to clean, reorder, and recolor categories.  
- All changes persist across your project and carry into exports.  
- Numeric and date bins cannot be adjusted from the legend.  

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