Problems in editing a forest plot

[Nadia Iovieno]

Dear all,

I made a forest plot using this comand (I'm using Stata 13.0):

meta x s, eform graph(r) cline xline(1) b2(RR) id(study) xlabel (.1,.5,1,5,10)

I want to edit the graph, but I'm not allowed to do it as when I try Graph Editor I get the message "This is not a "live" graph and therefore cannot be edited."
Can anyone explain to me where the problem is and help me with a solution?

Many thanks in advance.

[Nick Cox]

This is a user-written command. You don't say where it comes from, but my guess is that it uses Stata graphics from Stata 7 or earlier and so is completely outside the scope of the Graph Editor in later versions. There was a graph editor for such graphs, but I would be surprised if it even worked on any computer you might want to use.

[David Fisher]

Dear Nadia,

As Nick says, the "meta" command is very old and is not compatible with Stata's modern graphics setup. I would recommend installing the popular command "metan" (type "ssc describe metan"), or as an alternative, my own command "admetan" (within the ipdmetan package; type "ssc describe ipdmetan").

Could I ask what edits you are trying to make to your graph? There may be a way of obtaining the result you desire at the command-line, rather than in the Graph Editor.

[David Fisher]

I know this is a very old post, but I have recently received an email asking for help with a similar issue, concerning the user-written command metainf for performing sensitivity/influence meta-analysis and which also uses Stata 7 graphics.

I would like to point out that the user-written metan package (ssc describe metan) has recently been comprehensively updated, and can now run a sensitivity/influence analysis as part of its core functionality. The command uses twoway graphics, and is fully editable and/or modifiable with command-line options.

Many thanks,

David.