d.legend.vect(1)

📦

version 8.4.2 · 8 versions

💖 d.legend.vect 💖

okay bestie, so this is the manual page for d.legend.vect — that's the GRASS GIS User's Manual version, and she's a display module that draws you a cute little vector legend inside whatever graphics frame you've got going. 🔥

KEYWORDS: display, cartography, vector, legend

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

d.legend.vect
d.legend.vect --help
d.legend.vect [-b]  [at=left,top]   [columns=integer]   [title=string]
[symbol_size=integer]   [border_color=name]   [bgcolor=name]
[border_width=integer]   [font=string]   [fontsize=float]
[title_font=string]   [title_fontsize=float]   [sub_font=string]
[sub_fontsize=float]   [fontcolor=name]   [separator=character]
[input=name]   [output=name]   [--overwrite]  [--help]  [--verbose]
[--quiet]  [--ui]

🚩 Flags

-b — draw the legend background. yes she can have a lil backdrop, she's that girl 🎀
--overwrite — lets output files overwrite existing files, no questions asked
--help — prints the usage summary
--verbose — verbose module output, she's chatty
--quiet — quiet module output, she's mysterious
--ui — force launching the GUI dialog

🎛️ Parameters

at=left,top — where on the screen the legend gets drawn (percentage, and [0,0] is the lower left) Options: 0-100 Default: 10,40
columns=integer — how many legend columns you want Default: 1
title=string — the legend title
symbol_size=integer — symbol size Default: 20
border_color=name — border color Either a standard color name, R:G:B triplet, or "none" Default: black
bgcolor=name — background color Either a standard color name, R:G:B triplet, or "none" Default: white
border_width=integer — background border width Default: 2
font=string — font name
fontsize=float — font size Default: 12 Options: 1-360
title_font=string — title font name
title_fontsize=float — title font size Default: 18 Options: 1-360
sub_font=string — subtitle font name
sub_fontsize=float — subtitle font size Default: 14 Options: 1-360
fontcolor=name — font color Either a standard color name or R:G:B triplet Default: black
separator=character — field separator for the input file Special characters: pipe, comma, space, tab, newline Default: pipe
input=name — input legend file Path to legend file
output=name — output csv file Path to output file or - for standard output

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

d.legend.vect draws the vector legend of whatever vector maps are currently being displayed. she just shows up and does her thing 💅

The parameter at defines the screen position of the upper-left corner of the legend. The parameter columns defines the number of legend columns. You can specify a title for the legend with the parameter title. The font of the title can be changed with title_font and title_fontsize. The flag -b is used to draw the background in a specified color (bgcolor), plus the border color and border width (border_color and border_width). The parameter symbol_size defines the size of line and area symbols. The size of point symbols is based on the symbology currently set for the vector maps via d.vect or d.vect.thematic.

The module d.vect.legend supports subtitles (see the Notes section, bestie). Their font and font size can be set using the parameters sub_font and sub_fontsize.

🖌️ Changing legend symbols and labels

Symbols for vector areas and lines, and labels for individual vector labels, can be changed in the symbology setting of each vector map in d.vect or d.vect.thematic (it's in the Legend tab, iykyk). Use the parameters icon_area and icon_line to pick from the available symbols. And by using the parameter legend_label of the d.vect module, you can change the default label, which is just the map name.

🔀 Modifying the order of legend entries and omitting certain vector maps from legend

The modules d.vect and d.vect.thematic have a flag -s which removes that particular vector or thematic vector from the vector legend. bye bestie 👋

The order of entries is defined by the order in the Layer Manager (if you're using the GRASS GIS GUI). If that's not what you want, you can export the legend file into a text file using the parameter output, change the order of entries (see the Notes section for the format description, she explains everything), and then upload the modified file with the parameter input. The parameter output defines the path to the file where the internal legend file will be saved, and input defines the input file which the vector legend will be based on (input file must have the correct format, no cap).

📝 NOTES 📝

The module d.legend.vect draws the vector legend based on the legend file defined in the shell environment variable GRASS_LEGEND_FILE. This file is automatically created and updated whenever the d.vect command is used. You can create a custom legend file and then use export GRASS_LEGEND_FILE=path/to/file in your shell. The GRASS GUI and MONITORS create the legend file automatically. By default the legend file is stored in the grassdata/project/mapset/.tmp/user directory (and in the case of d.mon, deeper in the /monitor_name directory).

The legend file has this format:

label|symbol_name|size|color_type|feature_color|fill_color|line_width|geometry_type|feature_count

Color type can be 'lf' or 'ps'. Based on the color type, the color columns are interpreted as line color and fill colors (lf), or primary and secondary colors (ps). The module d.vect always uses 'lf' and d.vect.thematic uses 'ps'.

Here's an example of a legend file with subtitles, look at her go 🦋:

Infrastructure||||||||
major roads|legend/line|5|lf|black|200:200:200|2|line|355
bridges|extra/bridge|15|lf|black|black|1|point|10938
Hydrology||||||||
streams|legend/line_crooked|5|lf|30:144:255|200:200:200|3|line|8554
water bodies|legend/area_curved|5|lf|none|30:144:255|1|area|27764

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

Open a cairo monitor to render to a file:

g.region vector=nc_state
d.mon cairo
d.vect map=nc_state color=26:26:26 fill_color=229:229:229 width=2 legend_label="state boundaries"
d.vect map=urbanarea color=none fill_color=127:127:127 width=1 legend_label="urban areas"
d.vect map=railroads color=red width=1
d.vect map=hospitals color=77:77:77 fill_color=0:187:0 width=1 icon=basic/cross3 size=10
d.legend.vect -b at=2,40 title="Hospitals in North Carolina" symbol_size=26 fontsize=16 title_fontsize=20

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

d.vect, d.vect.thematic, d.legend

Check also the Python module from AddOns: d.vect.thematic2

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Adam Laza, during GSoC 2016 Mentors: Anna Petrasova, Vaclav Petras, Martin Landa

💾 SOURCE CODE 💾

Available at: d.legend.vect source code (history)

Accessed: Saturday Jan 17 05:40:35 2026

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🫶 this was GRASS 8.4.2, page d.legend.vect(1), accessed Saturday Jan 17 05:40:35 2026 — go draw yourself a gorgeous legend, you ate 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from

fedora 44: grass 8.4.2-4.fc44 · GPL-2.0-or-later
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on 2026-10-13: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms