diff --git a/R/pheatmap.r b/R/pheatmap.r
index 8c2e919..b5a4ee4 100644
--- a/R/pheatmap.r
+++ b/R/pheatmap.r
@@ -272,8 +272,13 @@ convert_annotations = function(annotation, annotation_colors){
             new[, i] = b[a]
         }
         else{
-            a = cut(a, breaks = 100)
-            new[, i] = colorRampPalette(b)(100)[a]
+            if(all(is.na(a))){
+                new[, i] = rep(NA, length(a))
+            }
+            else {
+                a = cut(a, breaks = 100)
+                new[, i] = colorRampPalette(b)(100)[a]
+            }
         }
     }
     return(as.matrix(new))
@@ -335,6 +340,11 @@ draw_annotation_legend = function(annotation, annotation_colors, border_color, .
     
     res = gList()
     for(i in names(annotation)){
+        
+        if(all(is.na(annotation[[i]]))){ # skip label for elements with only missing values
+            next()
+        }
+      
         res[[i]] = textGrob(i, x = 0, y = y, vjust = 1, hjust = 0, gp = gpar(fontface = "bold", ...))
         
         y = y - 1.5 * text_height
@@ -1089,10 +1099,13 @@ pheatmap = function(mat, color = colorRampPalette(rev(brewer.pal(n = 7, name = "
     }
     
     # Draw heatmap
-    pdf(file = NULL)
-    gt = heatmap_motor(mat, border_color = border_color, cellwidth = cellwidth, cellheight = cellheight, treeheight_col = treeheight_col, treeheight_row = treeheight_row, tree_col = tree_col, tree_row = tree_row, filename = filename, width = width, height = height, breaks = breaks, color = color, legend = legend, annotation_row = annotation_row, annotation_col = annotation_col, annotation_colors = annotation_colors, annotation_legend = annotation_legend, annotation_names_row = annotation_names_row, annotation_names_col = annotation_names_col, main = main, fontsize = fontsize, fontsize_row = fontsize_row, fontsize_col = fontsize_col, hjust_col = hjust_col, vjust_col = vjust_col, angle_col = angle_col, fmat = fmat, fontsize_number = fontsize_number, number_color = number_color, gaps_row = gaps_row, gaps_col = gaps_col, labels_row = labels_row, labels_col = labels_col, ...)
-    dev.off()
-    
+    tryCatch({
+      pdf(file = NULL)
+      gt = heatmap_motor(mat, border_color = border_color, cellwidth = cellwidth, cellheight = cellheight, treeheight_col = treeheight_col, treeheight_row = treeheight_row, tree_col = tree_col, tree_row = tree_row, filename = filename, width = width, height = height, breaks = breaks, color = color, legend = legend, annotation_row = annotation_row, annotation_col = annotation_col, annotation_colors = annotation_colors, annotation_legend = annotation_legend, annotation_names_row = annotation_names_row, annotation_names_col = annotation_names_col, main = main, fontsize = fontsize, fontsize_row = fontsize_row, fontsize_col = fontsize_col, hjust_col = hjust_col, vjust_col = vjust_col, angle_col = angle_col, fmat = fmat, fontsize_number = fontsize_number, number_color = number_color, gaps_row = gaps_row, gaps_col = gaps_col, labels_row = labels_row, labels_col = labels_col, ...)
+    }, finally={
+      dev.off()
+    })
+
     if(is.na(filename) & !silent){
         grid.newpage()
         grid.draw(gt)