Find and Delete Empty PDF Pages Using PDF.co and Make
In this tutorial, we will show you how to delete empty pages using PDF.co and Make.
You’ll learn how to inspect a PDF page by page, review potentially empty pages, and save a copy with confirmed blank pages removed.
Text extraction alone cannot prove that a page is blank: images, graphics, or unrecognized scanned text may still be present. This tutorial includes a manual review before deletion.
Step 1: Download Your PDF
Create a scenario in Make and add Google Drive → Download a File.
Connect your Google Drive account and select the PDF you want to inspect. The File ID must identify the file, not its folder.
Keep the scenario’s schedule disabled while reviewing this document.
Step 2: Get the Page Count
Add PDF.co → Get PDF Information.
Connect your PDF.co account using your API key, then configure:
- Import Options: Upload a File.
- Data: Map Google Drive’s downloaded file data.
Run the scenario and locate PageCount in the module’s output. See the Get PDF Information documentation.
Step 3: Check Each Page
Add Flow Control → Repeater with these settings:
- Initial value:
0. - Repeats: Map the PDF’s page count.
- Step:
1.
After the Repeater, add PDF.co → Convert from PDF:
- Import Options: Upload a File.
- Data: Map the original PDF data from Google Drive.
- Convert Type: PDF to Text Simple.
- Pages: Map the Repeater’s current value.
- Inline: Yes.
- Export Type: JSON Output.
This extracts text from one page per repetition. The first page uses index 0. See the Convert from PDF documentation.
Step 4: Review Potentially Empty Pages
Click Run once and inspect each conversion’s Body output.
If a page returns no text after ignoring whitespace, open that page in the original PDF and confirm that it contains no content you need to retain.
Record the confirmed blank pages using normal page numbers, starting at 1. For example, extraction index 2 corresponds to page 3.
Do not proceed if no pages are confirmed blank.
Step 5: Delete the Confirmed Blank Pages
Create a second, manually run scenario. This separates the review from deletion and avoids running a deletion for every extracted page.
Add Google Drive → Download a File and select the same original PDF.
Then add PDF.co → Make PDF.co API Call:
- API Endpoint Path:
/pdf/edit/delete-pages - Method: POST.
- Input Type: Upload files and inject as URL param.
- Data: Map the downloaded PDF data.
- Export Type: Download a File.
Add these body parameters:
pages: Your confirmed page numbers, separated by commasname:cleaned-document.pdfasync:false
For example, 3,5 removes the third and fifth pages. Submit all confirmed pages in one request against the original PDF.
The deletion endpoint uses 1-based page numbers, unlike text extraction’s zero-based indices. See the Delete Pages documentation.
Step 6: Save and Verify the Result
Add Google Drive → Upload a File.
Choose an output folder, use cleaned-document.pdf as the filename, and map PDF.co’s output Data.
Run the deletion scenario, then open the saved PDF. Confirm that only the intended blank pages were removed and that the remaining content is intact. Keep the original PDF as a backup.
In this tutorial, you learned how to delete empty pages using PDF.co and Make. You learned how to use the v1/pdf/convert/to/text-simple endpoint to convert every page into simple text and check if the returned text is empty or not. You also learned how to use the v1/pdf/edit/delete-pages endpoint to delete pages from PDF documents.
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