Learn English – What do you call a document which has no content

single-word-requests

We refer to a document whose title is blank as "untitled".

Similarly, how do we refer — in one word — to a document which has a title but there is no content?

I searched dictionaries, but the word "uncontented" has different meanings.

Best Answer

A document without content is empty:

[Merriam-Webster]
1 a : containing nothing
// empty shelves


Many software applications make use of the phrase empty document:

From an Oracle user's guide:

CREATE AN EMPTY DOCUMENT …

1. From the File menu, click New > Empty Document. The Create Document window opens.

From an Informatica KB:

ERROR: "Failed to create empty document" while opening PowerCenter client tools …

Launching any of PowerCenter client tools gives a pop-up error "failed to create empty document".
This can happen for any version.

From documentation for CS Professional Suite:

Error: Failed to Create Empty Document error …

You may see this error message when you open FileCabinet CS.

From documentation for Statistica:

Error: Failed to create empty document …

This article details troubleshooting steps when error message 'Failed to create empty document' appears while using Statistica

From documentation for CimEdit:

ERROR: "Failed to Create Empty Document" is Generated when CimEdit is Launched …

CIMPLICITY’s ‘CimEdit’ can fail to open and generates a dialog with an error message "Failed to create Empty Document”. It was found that deleting the windows user account and recreating this user appeared to resolve the issue. However, deleting an entire windows user profile is unpractical in most user environments, so an alternative solution was created.


There is even a Unicode character (U+1F5CB) that's named "EMPTY DOCUMENT." It's represented by the symbol for a piece of paper.

I can't get the Unicode version to reproduce, but the HTML entity equivalent does work:

🗋       🗋

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