Forest plots: trying to see the wood and the trees

We agree with Lewis and Clarke (1) that it’s not easy to produce
forest plot graphs. It’s yet more difficult when we already have the
estimate point and confidence interval and just want to represent them in
a graph and wants to produce a forest plot directly. Even in revman, you
do not have how to do it. Microsoft Excel software is widely used, but
there is no way to produce a forest plot graph. Using some tricks in this
software, we were able to create forest plots directly by using stock
charts. This small sheet with instructions can be downloaded at
www.evidencias.com/forest01.xls for free.

1. Lewis S, Clarke M. Forest plots: trying to see the wood and the trees.
BMJ 2001;322(7300):1479-1480.