sed 's/^ *//; s/ *$//; /^$/d; /^\s*$/d' file.txt > output.txt
`s/^ *//` => left trim
`s/ *$//` => right trim
`/^$/d` => remove empty line
`/^\s*$/d` => delete lines which may contain white space
sed 's/^ *//; s/ *$//; /^$/d; /^\s*$/d' file.txt > output.txt
`s/^ *//` => left trim
`s/ *$//` => right trim
`/^$/d` => remove empty line
`/^\s*$/d` => delete lines which may contain white space