Remove elements with only a space using jQuery
Try:
$('p')
.filter(function() {
return $.trim($(this).text()) === '' && $(this).children().length == 0
})
.remove()
What that does is it finds all the <p>s that have nothing in them, and removes them from the DOM.
As Greg mentions above, testing the trimmed .text() will remove paragraphs w/ no text, but do have a self-contained element like the <img> tag. To avoid, trim the .html() return. As text is considered a child element in the DOM, you'll be set.
$("p").filter( function() {
return $.trim($(this).html()) == '';
}).remove()