Eliminating empty columns - Code optimization.

[Pquigrafamos]

Hello! At a certain point of a bigger macro, I have the need to eliminate all columns that have no filled cells, in the range A to H.
The following piece of code does it perfectly, but it makes the whole macro extremely slow (More than 2 minutes waiting):

sub El_col1()
Worksheets("Tables").Activate
Dim Filled_cells As Integer
Dim x As Integer
For x = 1 To 8
Filled_cells = Application.WorksheetFunction.CountA(Columns(x))
If Filled_cells = 0 Then
Columns(x).EntireColumn.Delete
End If
Next
End sub

Can you please advise if I am doing something wrong here, if there is a way of optimizing this step?
Best regards!!

 

[Alex Blakenburg]

See if this makes enough of a difference.
The theory is when deleting rows work from the bottom up, when deleting columns work from right to left.
Also turn off screen updating and calculations (and back on at the end)

Sub El_col1()

    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    Application.Calculation = False
  
    Worksheets("Tables").Activate
    Dim Filled_cells As Integer
    Dim x As Integer
    For x = 8 To 1 Step -1
        Filled_cells = Application.WorksheetFunction.CountA(Columns(x))
        If Filled_cells = 0 Then
            Columns(x).EntireColumn.Delete
        End If
    Next
  
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
    Application.Calculation = True
End Sub

 

[Pquigrafamos]

@Alex Blakenburg , thanks a lot for the suggestion!
I have tried it and unfortunately this change did not improve the speed of the macro, it still adds two minutes to a macro that runs in 2 seconds.

 

[Pquigrafamos]

@Alex Blakenburg , I am sorry but I have found out that these deleted columns were associated with other cells in the same tab with formulas.
This is the reason why the macro was dragging so much when the column deleting was applied there.
Still, your code is faster than mine, thanks a lot for the improvement. :D

 

[Akuini]

Can row 1 be used as the criteria for blank column? say, if C1 is blank then column C must be blank

 

[Alex Blakenburg]

Oops your reference to formulas made me check what I sent you.
Can you please change the calculation lines to

Application.Calculation = xlManual
' body of code
Application.Calculation = xlAutomatic

 

[Pquigrafamos]

Did the second change, once again many thanks @Alex Blakenburg
@Akuini here not, unfortunately.
The project's purpose is to clean data extracted from pdf files.
Prior to this step, the section is unmerged, which leaves out sometimes some blank columns.
In this way, there might be just a cell filled somewhere in one of the lines that cannot be erased.

 

[Alex Blakenburg]

If you are pulling in data from pdf files and have 365 it might be worth looking at using Power Query.