[R] how to plot a nice legend?

[Jonas Stein]

i'd like to plot a legend in my diagram. The diagram will be included 
in a TikZ LaTeX document later.

I tried the legend() function, but 
- it can not find a good place it self where the legend fits
  and playing around with coordinates and scaling consumes a lot time

- standard settings for the text need adjustment 
  (linespacing is quite large and so on)

Is there an alternative to legend()?

Is it possible to place the legend() outside of the plot area?

Kind regards,

-- 
Jonas Stein <news at jonasstein.de>