Create a view from one result of another view and link to it
With much help from an answer in this post I was able to solve my issue.
Here are the steps in case it is helpful to anyone else:


create a view (in my case, to show information from the quiz_node_results table, using quiz result ID or result_id) 
create a PDF view containing the same fields as in the first view; use the views PDF module
in the first view, add a Global PHP field (use the Views PHP module) and add some PHP to print a link to the data in the row of the table from the PDF view if the score is at least the score threshold (pass_rate) for getting a certificate:


&lt;?php
if ($row-&gt;score&gt;=$row-&gt;pass_rate) {
print l('Print','/data/'.$row-&gt;result_id);
}
?&gt;


in the PDF view, make sure the URL to the view is /data/% and add a contextual link; in my case, for the quiz result ID, set to show all if validation is provided and to show basic validation to show all if not provided