Vacuous types, say, with papers to take up and absorb (6)
I believe the answer is:
digest
'absorb' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'vacuous types say with papers to take up' is the wordplay.
'vacuous' means to remove the middle letters.
'say' becomes 'eg' (short for 'exempli gratia', 'for example' in Latin).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'papers' becomes 'ID' (identification papers).
'to take up' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (I've seen 'taken up' mean this).
'types' with its middle removed is 'ts'.
'ts'+'eg'+'id'='tsegid'
'tsegid' back-to-front is 'DIGEST'.
'and' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for digest that I've seen before include "Take in - collected rules of laws" , "Synopsis" , "Collection of shortened versions" , "Periodical that summarises the news" , "Absorb and assimilate, like food" .)