RevMan HAL v.4

Much of the writing of Cochrane reviews involves accurate copying of data from one part of a RevMan file to another. RevMan HAL v.4 (not endorsed by the Collaboration) has been entirely rewritten to professional standards and has been designed to produce an automatic first draft of important sections of your review.

It uses the data you already entered into date of last search, data and analysis, and summary of findings tables to:

Generate text for most sections of the abstract, summary of search, effects of interventions and summary of main results in the discussion section.

Although English is the default language, RevMan HAL v.4 allows you to create a file in a language of your choice to auto-geneate these sections. It already comes with these files in English, Spanish and Mandarin. It does not translate but generates a first draft in the chosen language.

The plans for the next version are well underway and it will use data from the title, an editable repository of text containing information about scales and treatments, and information from the data and analysis table to automatically generate:

Text to be included in the description of conditions and description of intervention sections of the background, as well as how the intervention might work.

References and text to be included in the outcome scales section of the results.                             

Over the next few months we will ensure that the RevMan HAL has global editing functions, and for titles becoming protocols, a funtion to auto-insert draft methods text and references. We will be adding a Wiki button so RevMan HAL v.4 will output Wikipedia-compatible tables from your RevMan file for direct inclusion in the relevant Wiki page of your choice.

To try RevMan HAL v.4 please click on the download button below. Your review will be safe, but if you are worried use the 'back up your file' option. Further details can be found in the frequently asked questions document below or by emailing clive.adams@nottingham.ac.uk. We welcome any feedback you may have on RevMan HAL v.4.

Download RevMan HAL 4.2 

(Updated 18th March 2015)

Download RevMan HAL 4.3 Beta

(Updated 10th June 2015)

Please note that this has not been fully tested and MUST be used with the 'ENGLISH VERSIONS FOR 4.3' file, but:

  1. Has clear labelling of text boxes
  2. Has capacity to auto-insert a ready-drafted Methods section

Download language files

(Updated 18th March 2015)

Download English Versions for 4.3

Frequently asked questions

Hal images used under Creative Commons licence