# How to reuse the plotmark styles from PGFPlots outside the tikzpicture environment?

In a figure caption or in the main text I want to reuse the style of the plotmarks or the combination of line and symbol as in the figure legend. As I did not find a command to reuse the legend image I tried to draw the plotmark with the same properties but it seems that the syntax must be changed?

An illustration of what I have in mind:

The corresponding code: \documentclass{article}

    \usepackage{tikz,pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.7}
\usetikzlibrary{plotmarks}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[legend style={at={(0.03,0.97)},anchor=north west},]

mark options={solid,fill=.!30!white},
mark=*,]
coordinates {(1,1) (2,3) (3,5)};
\addlegendentry{$H \parallel c$};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

Reusing plot mark style in figure caption does not work:
\tikz[baseline=-0.5ex]\node[blue,mark options={solid,fill=.!30!white}] at (0,0) {\pgfuseplotmark{*}};
\end{document}


Is there any way to easily redraw the legend image or the plotmark outside of the pgfplot axis?

-

That's what the \label and \ref functionality of PGFPlots is great for: You add \label{<label name>} after the plot you want to show in your legend, and use \ref{<label name>} at the place where you want to show the legend image:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz,pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.7}
\usetikzlibrary{plotmarks}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[legend style={at={(0.03,0.97)},anchor=north west},]

mark options={solid,fill=.!30!white},
mark=*,]
coordinates {(1,1) (2,3) (3,5)};
\addlegendentry{$H \parallel c$};
\label{firstplot}
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

Reusing plot mark style in figure caption does not work:
\ref{firstplot}
\end{document}

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Oh, that is very nice. I overlooked this part of the documentation. At first it did not work with externalization but after some fiddling even that runs smoothly. Thank you very much. –  Alexander Feb 10 '13 at 18:09
@Alexander: Could you please provide your fixes, that \label and \ref works with externalization? –  Henri Menke Feb 10 '13 at 19:52
@HenriMenke: Take a look at the comments and the answer to pgfplots: externalization and legend referencing. There are two ways of getting it to work: Either by disabling the externalization locally for the \ref command, or by using the list-and-make externalization mode. –  Jake Feb 10 '13 at 22:01
@HenriMenke: I locally disabled the externalization, similar to the comments Jake linked to. This works without further changes to my setup and does not cause any negative side-effects. –  Alexander Feb 11 '13 at 1:25
Thank you very much! I've been struggling with this some times and then chose to remove all the label-ref-constructs. Your answer is great! –  Henri Menke Feb 12 '13 at 22:52