diff --git a/src/openparse/doc_parser.py b/src/openparse/doc_parser.py
index 5caf975..2a168bd 100644
--- a/src/openparse/doc_parser.py
+++ b/src/openparse/doc_parser.py
@@ -108,6 +108,7 @@ def parse(
             table_nodes = self._elems_to_nodes(table_elems)
 
         nodes = text_nodes + table_nodes
+	nodes = [node for node in nodes if node.text.strip() != ""] # remove empty nodes
         nodes = self.processing_pipeline.run(nodes)
 
         parsed_doc = ParsedDocument(