#1109769 Print Preview Missing in GTK Print Dialog on Kali Linux after Installing Evince

Package:
libgtk-4-bin
Source:
libgtk-4-bin
Description:
programs for the GTK graphical user interface library
Submitter:
Abrar Nasir Jaffari
Date:
2025-07-24 16:39:01 UTC
Severity:
normal
Tags:
#1109769#5
Date:
2025-07-23 12:52:16 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

After installing `evince` on a fresh installation of Kali Linux, the GTK
Print Dialog is missing the "Print Preview" option. This issue appears to
be caused by either `libgtk-4-bin` or a missing dependency related to
preview integration.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Fresh install of Kali Linux
2. Install `evince`
3. Open any GTK app with a print dialog (e.g. Gedit or Evince)
4. Open the Print dialog — the “Print Preview” option is missing

Expected behavior:
The print dialog should include a “Print Preview” option as is normally
provided by GTK applications with `evince`.

Please look into this or let me know if any additional packages need to be
installed to restore print preview functionality.

Thanks,
Abrar Nasir Jaffari
abrarnasirjaffari@gmail.com

#1109769#10
Date:
2025-07-23 16:34:42 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Abrar Nasir Jaffari,

you reported a bug in the Debian BTS. If the problem is reproducible
in Debian, please provide full reproduction steps including:

- which installation ISO and method you have used
- which options did you select at installation time
- how did you install evince (command line etc)
- possibly which printer you have connected

Best,
Chris

#1109769#17
Date:
2025-07-24 09:25:38 UTC
From:
To:
Hi ,

Thank you for your response.

Here are the details you requested regarding the issue with the missing
"Print Preview" in the GTK Print Dialog on Kali Linux after installing
evince:

*Issue Summary:*
After installing evince on a fresh installation of Kali Linux (based on
Debian), the GTK print dialog does not show the "Print Preview" option.
This may be related to libgtk-4-bin or a missing print preview integration
dependency.

*Reproduction Steps:*


   -

   *ISO Used:*
   kali-linux-2024.2-installer-amd64.iso
   Downloaded from official Kali downloads
   -

   *Installation Method:*
   Graphical Installer (default)
   -

   *Installation Options Selected:*
   -

      Desktop Environment: GNOME
      -

      Enabled network mirror
      -

      Full disk auto-partition with encryption
      -

      No custom tweaks
      -

   *evince Installation Method: *Installed manually after OS installation
   using the command: sudo apt update && sudo apt install evince


   -

   *Printer Info:*
   No physical printer connected. Issue occurs even when using Print to File or
   viewing the default GTK Print Dialog without any real printer attached.

*Additional Notes:*

   -

   The issue was reproducible on a fresh system with minimal packages.
   -

   Screenshots of the GTK print dialog show that the “Print Preview” option
   is missing.
   -

   The issue appears to persist even after restarting or logging out/in.
   -

   I suspect the issue might be due to either:
   -

      libgtk-4-bin lacking proper preview integration
      -

      Or a missing libevdocument/libevview or similar dependency not pulled
      automatically during evince installation

*About Screenshot Tool Behavior:*

While taking screenshots on GNOME/Kali, the screenshot overlay disables
interaction with dropdowns like the GTK print dialog. That’s why
screenshots were captured using the gnome-screenshot utility by manually
opening the print dialog, switching windows, and triggering screenshot with
delay, which sometimes hides transient elements like popups or modals.

Please let me know if I can provide any logs, debug output, or test
anything further to help reproduce this in pure Debian.

Best regards,
*Abrar Nasir Jaffari*
Cybersecurity Enthusiast | Founder and CEO, HackLikeMe

#1109769#22
Date:
2025-07-24 11:22:52 UTC
From:
To:
Control: reassign -1 src:gtk+3.0
Control: affects -1 + evince gedit
Control: tags -1 + moreinfo unreproducible

This is still not Debian, and bugs.debian.org is still not a support
channel for Kali Linux.

Please try to reproduce whatever issue you are reporting on a *Debian*
system (Kali is not Debian, it is a Debian derivative with
modifications). A "live" image like the ones in
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/weekly-live-builds/amd64/iso-hybrid/
written to a USB stick or optical media might be a useful way to do this
without overwriting any existing OS, but as a cybersecurity enthusiast
and CEO, hopefully you have some expendable test computers available
anyway and easily can do a Debian trixie installation.

If the issue is reproducible, please describe how to reproduce it
(including any additional packages that need to be installed or packages
that need to be removed in order to reproduce it). Also please check the
systemd Journal for any relevant log messages, and look for any output of
the affected program(s) when run from a terminal.

 From the reproduction steps that were originally given:

It seems highly unlikely that this could be a bug in libgtk-4-bin,
because libgtk-4-bin is not related to either evince or gedit. evince
and gedit are still GTK 3 applications, and do not use GTK 4.

If you are reporting an application issue, and you are not 100%
confident that it is caused by a specific component, please report it as
a bug in one of the affected applications (ideally whichever one is the
most "normal"). If the root cause turns out to be a library used by that
application, Debian contributors can reassign it to the library; but if
your guess about the affected component is wrong, as it seems to have
been here, then your issue report will be missing important information
like the application version that is affected.

I was unable to reproduce this problem on a relatively "clean" Debian 13
installation (originally installed from the Debian trixie d-i rc2
netinst and subsequently upgraded), with GNOME selected during
installation. On this system, evince was preinstalled, and I installed
gedit while attempting to reproduce the issue.

Steps that I followed:

- install from debian-trixie-DI-rc2-amd64-netinst.iso
- (upgrade various packages from trixie)

- run evince from gnome-terminal
- open a PDF document (I used
   /usr/share/doc/shared-mime-info/shared-mime-info-spec.pdf which is a
   convenient test document available on any Debian GNOME system)
- open the popover menu indicated by 3 horizontal lines
- click on the printer icon
- the print dialog's title bar looks like this:
   |[Cancel] Print [Preview] [Print]|
   with "Print" disabled (insensitive) because I have not configured any
   printers on the test system
- click on Preview
- a second window appears, with a simplified evince UI and a blue
   "Print" button in its titlebar
- this looks successful; close both evince windows

- sudo apt install gedit
- run gedit from gnome-terminal
- leave the document blank
- open the popover menu indicated by 3 horizontal lines
- click on the printer icon
- the print dialog's title bar looks like this:
   |[Cancel] Print [Preview] [Print]|
   with "Print" disabled (insensitive) because I have not configured any
   printers on the test system
- click on Preview
- this time I get a print preview inline in the gedit window, showing a
   heading "File: Untitled Document 1    Page 1 of 1" on my otherwise
   blank document
- this also looks successful

Because I suspected that there might be an interaction with
debian/patches/printing-Default-to-papers-previewer-and-fallback-to-evin.patch
in Debian's GTK 3, I also tried installing the 'papers' package.
With that package installed, gedit still works as expected on my test
system, but evince does not; but the symptom I observe is not the same
as in your screenshot (I get an enabled/sensitive Preview button, but it
doesn't work) so I will report that issue separately to avoid confusion.

     smcv

#1109769#35
Date:
2025-07-24 14:00:27 UTC
From:
To:
See https://bugs.debian.org/1109826 for that separate issue.

     smcv

#1109769#40
Date:
2025-07-24 16:37:21 UTC
From:
To:
gedit does not use the normal gtk print preview but has its own
implementation. When I wanted to test print preview for gtk3, I used
mousepad.

Thank you,
Jeremy