The Report Node

If you have added a custom report, you can generate a report tree based on the available templates as specified in the section (described below) by clicking (

). If the report tree is not empty, you will be asked if you want to replace the current tree.

	Any manual changes that you have made in the model tree, such as rearrangements of the section structure or settings adjustments will be lost if you confirm that you want to replace the current report tree.

Regenerating the report tree can be useful if you want to update the tree to reflect changes you have made in the model or if you want to change the report template without replacing the entire report.

Click the (

) or (

) button to show a preview of the report in the window. Click the button (

) in the toolbar for the Settings window for , right-click the node, or press F8 to create a report. You can also click the downward arrow beside the button or right-click and choose (

) to open the fullscreen window for writing the report to a database. The and options are also available by right-clicking any node in the report tree. Selecting from any report node’s context menu generates the entire report.

This section, which is collapsed by default, contains the setting for the level of detail in new nodes that are added to the report manually. It also determines which nodes are added as well as their level of detail if you click (

) in the main node’s toolbar. The list takes its initial value from the template used to create the initial report contents. Alternatively, if you added an empty report, the default value is . The options available for selection include the values , , and as well as any custom report templates found in your user and installation report templates folders and in the current model (see Creating, Exporting, and Using Custom Report Templates).

You can select to create a report in one of the following formats, which you choose from the list:

When adding a new report, the initial setting for the output format is that of the last report you wrote (or previewed).

The Report Generator stores the report in a file with the chosen name and by default gives it the extension .html or .docx. For HTML reports, it stores images included in the report and the style sheet in a subdirectory with the same name as the report plus the suffix _files. Reports in Microsoft Word format are self-contained.

Specify the report’s directory path and filename in the text field or click (

) to launch the dialog box, browse to the desired location, and enter the filename in the text field. If the text field is empty, you will be asked to specify the filename when you click . You can also click the downward arrow beside the button and choose (

) to open the fullscreen window. Click the downward arrow for the menu (

) to choose (

) and (if you have copied a file location) (

If you select (only available if you are not writing to a database), the dialog box will always prompt you for a filename; if specified, the current name is the default choice.

When you add a new report, the filename will by default be empty. You can override this behavior by specifying a default report directory in the dialog box; see the subsection Edit the Default Report Settings below.

Select to directly open the generated report in a web browser (HTML) or Microsoft Word.

By default, report output data that refers to model contents will be rendered as hyperlinks if there is a report section for the referenced object. For example, in the report section for a solver you can follow a link to get to the section describing the study step that defines the solver. If you want to disable hyperlinks, for example when printing a report, select the check box.

To customize the style of reports in the HTML output format, you can specify the CSS-file to use in the list:

•

Select to use the default style file specified in the dialog box (see Edit the Default Report Settings) or the built-in style in COMSOL Multiphysics if no valid default style file has been given.

•

Select if you want to use a custom style sheet for a particular report. If you select , specify a style sheet in the field, or click to locate the style-sheet file (CSS file). Click to reread the style-sheet file. Click to import the style-sheet file into the model; otherwise, COMSOL Multiphysics references it on your file system. When you have imported a style-sheet file, the field shows its filename. Click to save an imported style-sheet file on the file system at a location of your choice. The field will be updated accordingly. Click to remove an imported style-sheet file from the model.

Also for reports in the HTML format, select a level from the list: (the default; one file only), , , or .

For reports in the Microsoft Word format, you can control the layout using the list:

•

Select to use as the style template the default Microsoft Word template (.dotx) or Microsoft Word document (.docx) file specified in the dialog box, on the page. If no such file has been specified, COMSOL’s built-in template will be used.

•

Select and type a path to the .dotx or .docx file of your choice in the text field or click to navigate to its location on the file system. Click to reread the template file. Click to import the template file into the model; otherwise, COMSOL Multiphysics references it on your file system. When you have imported a template, the field shows its filename. Click to save an imported template file on the file system at a location of your choice. The field will be updated accordingly. Click to remove an imported template file from the model.

From the list, choose the section level at which to start a new page of your report in Microsoft Word format: (no page breaks), (the default), , or .

For both output formats, choose the section level to which the report should enumerate each section from the list: (no enumerated section), , , (the default), , , , or (enumerate all sections).

Once an HTML report is created, it can be published or edited in any HTML editor. If you want to publish a report on the internet or send it to a colleague, also send the HTML file and the folder with the images and style sheet.

From the list, you can select the image size as (240-by-180 pixels for HTML screen output/2.4-by-1.8 inches for print-optimized output), (320-by-240 pixels/3-by-2.4 inches), (480-by-360 pixels/4-by-3 inches; the default), (600-by-450 pixels/6-by-4.5 inches), or (720-by-540 pixels/7.2-by-5.4 inches)).

The width and height values above apply to the default setting, , for which all images have an aspect ratio of 4:3. If you change to instead, width and height are interchanged, resulting in images with the aspect ratio 3:4.

From the list, select the image file type: (the default), , or (not supported for reports in Microsoft Word format; choosing this option gives PNG images).

	For the best image quality, use PNG images.

From the list, specify which color theme to use for the report: (the default), , , , , , , , , or .

From the list, choose which background to use for the report. , , (the default), or . If you chose , then specify a color using the color palette that become available.

There are three options for controlling image generation:

•

(default): Report images are generated in accordance with the settings for the individual report features each time you write the report.

•

: Images are generated if they are not available. Use this option if you want to quickly rewrite the report to include changes that only affect the text.

•

: Images are not generated. This option can be useful, for example, when troubleshooting models with a very large number of nodes.

When the output format is Microsoft Word, use the setting to control if images in the report will be possible to update from Microsoft Word using the COMSOL add-in (see The COMSOL Add-Ins for PowerPoint and for Word for details):

•

(default) — Image linking is controlled by the check box on the page in the dialog box.

In this section, collapsed by default, you can specify metadata for reports in HTML and Microsoft Word formats.

For HTML reports, you can specify keywords in the text field. The entered text will be included in the main HTML-file’s head section as the value of the content attribute in the meta element with the name attribute value keywords. Similarly, the text entered in the field will be included in the head section as the value of the content attribute in the meta element with the name attribute value description.

For Microsoft Word reports, you can specify information to include in text fields with the same names on the page in Microsoft Word, which you access via the ribbon button. For the fields indicated by “(all)” below to be visible in Microsoft Word, you have to click in that program:

Using the controls in this section, you can customize how numbers are formatted in report table output. The available settings are:

•

— Numbers in report tables are displayed in the same way as in the column of the table in a node in the COMSOL Desktop. In particular, the precision is then controlled by the setting on the page of the dialog.

•

— Choose this option if you want to customize number formatting for your report. You can then specify the as an integer between 1 and 15 (the default is the current preference setting); the , with the alternatives

For and notation, select the if you want to keep trailing zeros within the chosen precision.

Select the check box to right align table columns with purely numeric data.

You can override the report-wide number format settings for individual report feature nodes that generate table data. The window for such a report feature node contains a section where you can specify the as either (the default) or . The former option gives the number formatting defined in the corresponding section of the parent Report node, whereas the latter allows you to specify dedicated settings.

Open The Preferences Dialog Box and click to control some properties for the report generator.

•

If the refers to an existing directory, the default filename for a new report will be based on the model’s name. When the report directory is set in this way, a nonabsolute path in the text field in the section of the Report window will be interpreted as relative to this directory.

•

In the field, type the full path and filename to a style sheet (.css-file) that you want to use as the default style sheet for reports in HTML format. Click to browse to the file’s location.

•

In the field, type the full path and filename to a Microsoft Word template (.dotx-file) that you want to use as the default style template for reports in Microsoft Word format. Click to browse to the file’s location. You can also use a Microsoft Word document (.docx-file) as your default template.

•

In the field, type the full path and filename for an image file (on PNG or JPEG format) to use as the logo. Click to browse to the logo file. If empty, the COMSOL logo appears in the report.

•

From the list, you can select the default size for report images; choose between , , , , and . Similarly, use the list to specify the default type for the report images: , , or .

•

Select the check box to make Microsoft Word ask whether you want to update the table of contents when you first launch a report in this format. Such an update is necessary to generate page numbers in the table of contents, but you can choose to do the update after you have opened the document in Microsoft Word. By default this check box is not selected.