How to print a risk report on Mac
You can do this with RiskOS, a risk register for macOS. One keystroke, and the register arrives on paper with your name on every page.
Paper still has a job. A printed risk report can be read around a table without anyone opening a laptop, annotated in the margin, and filed in a board pack that will still be readable in ten years. Printing from RiskOS gives you the same document as the PDF — the same cover, the same figures, the same page breaks — because it is the PDF, handed to the printer rather than saved to a file.
Print, PDF, HTML and Excel are all drawn from one snapshot of the register, so a printed page and an exported file can never disagree about a number.
Where printing lives
Choose Reports in the sidebar, under Output. Everything that decides what comes out of the printer sits on this one screen: the cover fields at the top, the list of section toggles beneath them, and the scope choice below that. There is no separate print layout to set up. The report you compose here is the report that prints.
Printing is one of four outputs, and it shares its settings with the other three. Pressing ⌘P takes the report as you composed it, paginates it for A4, and sends it on. Nothing about the printed copy is decided elsewhere, which is why the page you hold matches the file you kept.
Print a report, step by step
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Open the report builder
Choose Reports in the sidebar. The builder opens with the cover fields first, the section toggles under them and the scope choice at the foot. Work down it in that order and the report composes itself as you go.
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Fill in the cover fields
Type the report title, the organisation the report is about, and the name of whoever prepared it. These three lines set the cover page. The title is the one a reader will quote back at you, so make it specific. Quarterly risk report, September 2026 reads better in a set of minutes than Risk report, and it still says what it is on a desk a year later.
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Set up your header and footer
Choose Set Up Branding to open the header and footer designer, then fill in your business name, tagline, address, phone, email, website and any registration or VAT line you are obliged to carry. Drop a logo in as PNG, JPEG, PDF or SVG, and add the variant for dark backgrounds if your mark needs one. The live preview beside the fields is the real header and footer — what you see there is exactly what prints.
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Choose the sections that go in
Turn on what belongs in this report: executive summary, risk matrix, top risks, full register, per-risk detail pages, controls, open actions, risk indicators, risk events and framework coverage. Top risks takes a number between 3 and 50, so a board pack can carry ten rows while a management pack carries thirty. Every toggle you leave off is paper you do not print.
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Decide whether closed risks are included
Scope carries one choice: whether closed and accepted risks appear beside the active ones. Leave it off for a working report, so the pages hold only what somebody still has to act on. Turn it on for an annual or audit copy, where the point is a full year of decisions rather than today's position.
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Press ⌘P to print
With the register in the state you want on the record, press ⌘P. The report is laid out page by page and passed to the printer — the branded cover first, then the sections in the order they appear in the builder.
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Choose A4 as the paper size
The pages are laid out for A4. That is where the running header and footer sit correctly and where the register tables have room for their columns, so choose that size wherever it is offered. The sheets then match the exported PDF page for page.
Because table headers repeat and rows are never split, any single sheet from the tray is readable on its own. If the stack is thicker than the meeting needs, turn sections off rather than shrinking the page.
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Keep a copy of what you handed out
Press ⇧⌘P to export the same report as a PDF and save it somewhere durable, such as Documents ▸ RiskOS. RiskOS confirms the export with the filename it wrote. Six months later, that file answers the question of what exactly was in front of the room.
The four outputs, and where print sits among them
All four are built from the same composed report, so the choice between them is about what the reader needs rather than what the figures will say.
| Output | Shortcut | What you get | Reach for it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| ⌘P | Exactly the PDF, sent to the printer. | Somebody wants paper in front of them. | |
| ⇧⌘P | Paginated A4 with a branded cover, and a header and footer on every page. | You are attaching the report, or keeping a record of it. | |
| HTML | ⇧⌘E | One self-contained file that opens in any browser, with no scripts and nothing loaded from the internet. | The reader wants to scroll and search rather than page. |
| Excel | — | A workbook of seven sheets whose formulas re-score themselves when you change a likelihood. | Somebody wants to work the numbers, not read them. |
What each section puts on the page
A printed report costs sheets of paper and somebody's attention, and the two run out at about the same rate. Knowing what each toggle adds is most of the skill in composing one.
| Section | What it prints | Include it when |
|---|---|---|
| Executive summary | The short opening page on where the register stands. | Always. Some readers will not turn past it. |
| Risk matrix | The 5×5 grid with your risks placed on it. | You want the shape of the register understood in one glance. |
| Top risks | The worst rows in order, three to fifty of them. | The meeting has an agenda and limited time. |
| Full register | Every risk as a table, with the columns that carry the argument. | The report is a record rather than a briefing. |
| Per-risk detail pages | A page for each risk, with its ratings, treatment and context. | Individual risks are going to be discussed one by one. |
| Controls | The control register with status, owner and effectiveness. | The reader needs to see what the residual figures rest on. |
| Open actions | Everything outstanding, with owners and due dates. | You want the meeting to end with commitments. |
| Risk indicators | Each indicator with its latest reading and status. | Movement matters more than the current rating. |
| Risk events | What has actually happened, with severity and cost. | You are reporting a period rather than a position. |
| Framework coverage | Covered, mapped but not operating, and not mapped. | An auditor or a client is in the room. |
The sections that make a report long
Per-risk detail pages and the full register are the two that turn a briefing into a document. A register of twelve active risks with detail pages switched on runs to a respectable stack; a register of two hundred becomes something nobody will carry. Print the summary, the matrix and the top risks for the room, and keep a PDF of the full thing for whoever asks.
Printing a period rather than a position
A quarterly or annual report answers a different question from a management pack. Turn on risk events and risk indicators so the pages show what happened and what moved, and include closed and accepted risks so decisions taken during the period are visible rather than quietly absent.
How the pages are laid out
Pagination is where printed reports usually fall apart: a table header stranded on the previous sheet, a row cut in half at the fold, a total on its own page. RiskOS lays the report out for A4 before it goes anywhere, and the same rules apply whether the pages end up in a file or in a tray.
Tables repeat their headers
When a table runs past the bottom of a page, its header row prints again at the top of the next one. On page four of a register you can still see which column holds the residual score and which holds the review date, so nobody has to leaf backwards to read a row.
Rows never split across a page
A row that will not fit in the space left moves down to the next page whole. You never get the risk title on one sheet and its owner on the other, and a reader can pick up any single page and have complete rows on it.
The cover and the running furniture
The first page is the branded cover carrying your report title, the organisation and who prepared it. After that, every page carries the running header and footer you designed, so a sheet separated from the pack still says where it came from. Loose pages from a risk report have a way of turning up in other people's files.
Branding on every page
The header and footer designer is where a report stops looking like output and starts looking like a document from your organisation. Fill it in once and every printed page carries it.
| Field | What to put in it |
|---|---|
| Business name | The name you want on the record, which is not always the name on the door. |
| Tagline | One short line. A department or a function reads better than a slogan. |
| Address | The registered or principal address, as a reader expects to see it. |
| Phone | A number somebody could reach on a question about the report. |
| The address that should receive replies, rather than a personal one. | |
| Website | Your own domain, written plainly. |
| Registration or VAT line | The company or tax number a client's finance team will look for. |
| Logo | PNG, JPEG, PDF or SVG, with an optional variant for dark backgrounds. |
Choosing a logo that prints well
A vector logo, supplied as PDF or SVG, stays crisp at whatever size the header uses, which is the safest choice for something that will be printed and photocopied. If all you have is a bitmap, give it more resolution than a screen needs. The preview shows the result before you commit a sheet of paper to it.
Printing for a client
Profiles dress the whole app for one client, including the report defaults, the client name and the client logo. Switch profile before you print and the report carries that client's "prepared for" name and logo while your own identity stays primary — three clients in an afternoon, without editing a field between them.
Troubleshooting
The printed pages have no header or footer
Branding has not been set up yet. Choose Set Up Branding, fill in at least the business name and drop in a logo, and watch the preview build the real header and footer as you type. Print again and every page will carry it, including the cover.
The report came out far longer than I expected
Three toggles account for almost all of it. Per-risk detail pages add a page for every risk in scope, the full register prints every row rather than the top ones, and including closed and accepted risks widens all of it. Turn off what the meeting does not need, or lower the top risks count, and print again.
The logo prints as a pale smudge
Usually a low-resolution bitmap being scaled up, or a light mark intended for a dark background. Supply the logo as PDF or SVG where you can, and use the dark-background variant only for the setting it was made for. The preview is honest about the result, so check it there before the paper goes through.
The paper copy does not match the PDF I sent last week
Both were correct when they were made. Every output is a snapshot of the register at the moment you produced it, and the register has moved since — a review, a re-scored risk, a control that started operating. Print and export together when a version has to be defensible, and keep the PDF as the copy of record.
Nothing happens when I press the print shortcut
Check which section you are in. ⌘P prints the report you have composed in Reports, so choose that section in the sidebar first. If an output does fail, RiskOS says what happened and what to do next rather than leaving you with an empty tray.
Printing routines worth keeping
A few habits keep printed reports trustworthy long after the meeting they were made for.
- Print and export in the same minute. Press ⌘P, then ⇧⌘P, and the paper in the room and the file in your records are the same document.
- Put the period in the title. A cover reading Quarterly risk report, September 2026 is self-describing on a desk in March.
- Review before you print, not after. Walk the risks that are due first, so the report carries assessments made this week rather than last quarter.
- Compose two reports for one meeting. A short one for the room, and a full one kept as a PDF for anyone who asks a question the short one cannot answer.
- Check the preview before the tray. Correcting a header on screen is cheaper than correcting it after fifty sheets.
- Switch profile first when you print for a client. One keystroke puts the right client name and logo on the cover, and takes the previous client's off it.
- Keep printed copies as evidence, not as the register. Paper is the record of a moment; the register on your Mac stays the live one.
Frequently asked questions
How do I print a risk register report on a Mac?
Choose Reports in the sidebar, fill in the report title, organisation and who prepared it, turn on the sections you want, then press ⌘P. The report is paginated for A4 and handed to your printer as exactly the PDF. What arrives is the branded cover, then the sections in the order they appear in the builder, with a running header and footer on every page.
Does the printed report look the same as the exported PDF?
Yes. Printing sends exactly the PDF to the printer instead of to a file, and both are built from the same snapshot of your register, so the cover, the pagination and every figure match. If you want a copy of what you handed round, press ⇧⌘P straight after printing and keep the file alongside the paper.
What paper size is the risk report laid out for?
A4. The pages are paginated for it, and the running header and footer are positioned with that size in mind, so choose A4 wherever the paper size is offered. Tables repeat their headers on each new page and rows are never split across a fold, so any single sheet stands on its own.
Why is my logo missing from the printed pages?
The header and footer have not been set up. Choose Set Up Branding, add your business name and the rest of your details, and drop a logo in as PNG, JPEG, PDF or SVG. The preview shows the real header and footer as you work, and what appears there is exactly what prints on every page.
Can I print only the top risks instead of the whole register?
Yes. Turn off the full register and the per-risk detail pages, leave top risks on, and set how many you want — anywhere from three to fifty. Add the executive summary and the risk matrix and you have a short pack that fits a meeting, with the detail kept back for anyone who asks for it.
Can I put a client's name on a printed report?
Switch to that client's profile before printing. A profile carries its own report defaults, client name and client logo, so the report is prepared for them while your own identity stays primary on the page. Cycling profiles takes a keystroke, which makes printing for several clients in one sitting straightforward.
What is the difference between printing and exporting HTML?
Print produces paginated A4 pages for a reader holding paper. The HTML export is one self-contained file that opens in any browser, with no scripts and nothing loaded from the internet, for a reader who would rather scroll and search. Both come from the same composed report, so the two always carry the same numbers.
Does printing a report send my risk register anywhere?
No. Everything here happens on your Mac. There is no account, nothing is uploaded, and your register never leaves the machine except in the file or the printed pages you produce yourself. The report is built locally and handed straight to your printer, and there is no tracking or telemetry of any kind.