How to remove blank pages from a scanned PDF

Scan a stack of single-sided letters with the scanner set to double-sided, and every second page of the PDF is empty. Export a Word document with a stray page break, and the last page is blank. Blank pages make a document look careless, add to the file size and confuse anyone counting pages. Removing them takes a minute.

Remove them step by step

1. Open Delete PDF Pages and add the PDF. The pages appear as thumbnails, rendered in your browser.
2. Click each blank thumbnail, or type the page numbers, such as 2, 4, 9-11.
3. Download the new file and flick through it once before sending.

If the document is mostly blank pages with a few good ones, it is quicker to say which pages to keep. Extract PDF Pages takes the same kind of list and builds a new PDF from just those pages.

The double-sided scan pattern

When a whole stack of single-sided originals went through a duplex scanner, the blanks follow a pattern: every even page. For a 20-page scan you can type 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 in one go. Check the thumbnails before saving, because a letter with writing on the back breaks the pattern.

Pages that only look blank

Some “blank” pages are not empty. Thin paper shows the other side through, so the scan contains a faint mirror image of the text. Others carry a small page number, a scanner timestamp or a punch-hole shadow. They still count as pages, and a scanner's automatic blank-page setting may keep them. Deciding by eye from the thumbnails is the reliable way.

Pages printed with “This page intentionally left blank” are a different case. They are there so that chapters start on a right-hand page when the document is printed double-sided. Remove them only if the PDF will be read on screen.

Stop blank pages appearing next time

• Scanners: look for a setting called “skip blank pages”, “blank page removal” or similar, or switch to single-sided when the originals are single-sided.
• Word documents ending in a blank page: turn on formatting marks (the ¶ button) and delete the empty paragraphs or page break at the end. If the document ends in a table, Word always keeps one paragraph after it; select that paragraph and set its font size to 1 point.
• Section breaks: an “odd page” section break deliberately inserts a blank page. Change it to “next page” if you do not need it.

After removing pages

Printed page numbers on the pages themselves do not change, so a removed blank in the middle can leave a gap in the numbering. If that matters, number the cleaned file with Add Page Numbers to PDF. If some of the scans came out sideways, fix them with Rotate PDF. If the file is now going to a portal with a size limit, see getting a PDF under an upload limit.