Blank Lines in Embedded BI Publisher Report

We are using EnterpriseOne's Embedded BI Publisher to send the purchase order print over to BI Publisher.  the purchase order print tests the status of each line number so that it only prints lines that haven't been printed yet and if the status is incorrect it suppresses the section write for that line number.  however, when it does this is sends empty nodes over in the XML file which is picked up by my rtf templates and results in a blank line being thrown for each empty node that is in the file.

For example, if there is a purchase order with 9 lines, but lines 1 to 5 don't have a next status of 'print' then it suppresses these and prints out only lines 6-9.  The trouble is my rtf template which is being outputted to pdf sends over 5 blank lines and then starts printing line 6 onwards half way down the page!