Abstracts and Plain language summaries

Abstracts and Plain language summaries have restricted formatting options because they are:

Shared with third parties such as PubMed
Stand-alone documents that can be read independently of the full review

Style and formatting guidance:

Abstract word limit

Abstracts are restricted to 1,000 words in RevMan. This reflects the fact that PubMed will only display the first 1,000 words of an Abstract. You will see a warning in the Abstract section and a Validation error on the dashboard if your Abstract is over this length.

Formatting options in RevMan

Section	Abstract	PLS	Notes on presentation on Cochrane Library / PubMed
Title (one line only)	'Abstract' heading added automatically.	Required - must be inserted manually. Full formatting options available in RevMan.
Subheadings and sections (other than fixed Abstract headings)	Heading formatting is not available.		Bold formatting can be used as a workaround to create headings and subheadings for publication on the Cochrane Library. PubMed does not render bold or italic formatting, and does not support paragraph breaks within sections.
	Additional headings and subheadings can be inserted manually, see note.	Additional headings and subheadings are required by PLS template, see note.
Tables	Not available
Lists – bulleted and numbered	Not available	Available (focused format only)	In Abstracts, symbols and line breaks can be used as a workaround to create bulleted/numbered lists for publication on the Cochrane Library. Line breaks will not be rendered on PubMed.
Line breaks	Available		PubMed does not support paragraph breaks within sections.
Bold	Available		PubMed does not render formatting.
Italics	Available
Underline	Available
Superscript	Available
Subscript	Available
Internal links	Not available		Internal and external links should not be used to ensure the Abstract and PLS can be read as stand-alone documents.
External links	Available but not allowed in Cochrane style.
Symbols	Available