Remove Blank Pages

😫 The Pain Point

A scanned document has blank pages between sections from the scanner’s automatic page detection. You need to remove them but checking 100 pages manually is tedious.

🚀 Agentic Solution

A Blank Page Detector that identifies and removes empty pages automatically.

Key Features:

• Smart Detection: Handles both pure white and near-white (fax artifacts) pages.
• Threshold Control: Define what percentage of the page must be blank.
• Preview Mode: Review detected blanks before removing.

⚔️ Phase 1: Commander (Quick Fix)

For quick cleaning.

Prompt:

“I have a PDF scanned_doc.pdf with blank pages. Write a Python script to:

1. Detect: Identify pages that are >95% white/blank.
2. Remove: Create new PDF without blank pages.
3. Threshold: Adjustable via --threshold 0.98 (default 0.95).
4. Report: Print removed page numbers.

Use pdf2image to render and analyze each page. Handle encrypted PDFs.”

Result: Clean document without wasted pages.

🏗️ Phase 2: Architect (Permanent Tool)

For Document Scanners.

Engineering Prompt:

**Role:** Python Tool Developer
**Task:** Create a "Blank Page Remover".

**Requirements:**
1.  **GUI:**
    *   Select PDF.
    *   Threshold slider (90-100%).
    *   Preview detected blank pages.
    *   Keep/remove toggle for each.
    *   "Save Clean PDF" button.
    *   Progress bar.

2.  **Logic:**
    *   Render pages to images.
    *   Calculate white pixel percentage.
    *   Handle grayscale and color pages.

3.  **Deliverables:**
    *   `remove_blanks.py`
    *   `run.bat`, `run.sh`
    *   `requirements.txt`

🧠 Prompt Decoding

• 95% Threshold: Scanned pages often have slight shadows at edges. Pure 100% white may miss real blank pages.

🛠️ Instructions

1. Copy Prompt → Run.
2. Adjust threshold if needed.