diff --git a/src/main/frontend/components/block.cljs b/src/main/frontend/components/block.cljs
index db9457fbb..61712fc3d 100644
--- a/src/main/frontend/components/block.cljs
+++ b/src/main/frontend/components/block.cljs
@@ -738,7 +738,9 @@
 
         ["Page_ref" page]
         (let [label* (if (seq (mldoc/plain->text label)) label nil)]
-          (page-reference (:html-export? config) page config label*))
+          (if (and (string? page) (string/blank? page))
+            [:span (util/format "[[%s]]" page)]
+            (page-reference (:html-export? config) page config label*)))
 
         ["Search" s]
         (cond
diff --git a/src/main/frontend/format/block.cljs b/src/main/frontend/format/block.cljs
index 9e24e51f4..9feaa0535 100644
--- a/src/main/frontend/format/block.cljs
+++ b/src/main/frontend/format/block.cljs
@@ -106,6 +106,7 @@
     (cond
       (and
        (string? page)
+       (not (string/blank? page))
        (text/block-ref? page))
       (text/block-ref-un-brackets! page)