Reports and PDFs

Two outputs from the same document, both with every finding expanded and its remediation printed in full.

The print view

Every stored scan has a standalone, print-optimised report page:

/admin/microscope/scans/<id>/report

It is a complete document — score, area breakdown, every finding with its measurement, impact, fix and evidence — laid out for paper. Any browser will save it as a PDF, with better typography and better page breaks than a PDF library produces.

The Print report button on a scan opens it in a new tab.

The PDF file

When you need a file rather than a browser dialog — to email it, to attach it to a scheduled scan, or to archive it — there is a server-rendered PDF at:

/admin/microscope/scans/<id>/report.pdf

Or from the command line, for any stored scan:

php craft microscope/scan/report --pdf=report.pdf

With no id argument that exports the most recent scan; pass one to export a specific scan.

Why dompdf is optional

Server-side PDF rendering needs dompdf, which Microscope suggests rather than requires:

composer require dompdf/dompdf

The reason is specific. Every published dompdf release carries a security advisory, and Composer’s audit policy blocks flagged packages by default. A hard requirement on it would make Microscope uninstallable on any site with that policy switched on — which is why Craft Commerce, Formie and Freeform all treat it the same way.

Without dompdf installed, nothing breaks: the print view is unaffected, and the PDF route redirects to it. Both dompdf 2.x and 3.x work, so a site that already has it through another plugin needs no extra install and no version juggling.

Emailing a report

From a scan, Email report sends it to the configured recipients immediately. Scheduled scans can send automatically — see Scheduled scans — and the PDF is attached when dompdf is available and the setting is on.

The email itself is a summary: score, grade, the area breakdown and the highest-priority findings, with a link back to the full report in the control panel.

Who can see a report

Reports are control panel routes and require the View scans and reports permission. They are not public URLs and there is no token-based sharing — to give a report to somebody outside the site, send them the PDF. See Permissions.