PaddleOCR Text Recognition

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill for:

Extract text from images (screenshots, photos, scans)
Extract text from PDFs or document images when the goal is line/box-level text
Extract text from URLs or local files that point to images/PDFs

Do not use for:

Documents with tables, formulas, charts, or complex layouts — use Document Parsing instead

Usage

Basic OCR

From URL:

bash

paddleocr api \
  --model_type ocr \
  --file_url "https://example.com/image.png"

From local file:

bash

paddleocr api \
  --model_type ocr \
  --file_path "./document.pdf"

Common Options

bash

# With specific model
paddleocr api \
  --model_type ocr \
  --model PP-OCRv5 \
  --file_path "./report.pdf"

# Disable preprocessing (faster, for flat/well-oriented images)
paddleocr api \
  --model_type ocr \
  --file_path "./document.pdf" \
  --use_doc_unwarping False \
  --use_doc_orientation_classify False

# Save result to file
paddleocr api \
  --model_type ocr \
  --file_url "https://..." \
  --output result.json

# Page ranges
paddleocr api \
  --model_type ocr \
  --file_path "./large.pdf" \
  --page_ranges "1-5,10,15-20"

Output Format

json

{
  "jobId": "job-xxx",
  "pages": [
    {
      "prunedResult": {
        "rec_texts": ["Line 1", "Line 2"],
        "rec_scores": [0.98, 0.95]
      },
      "ocrImageUrl": "https://..."
    }
  ]
}

Important Notes

Preprocessing options: By default, the API enables document preprocessing (unwarping and orientation classification). For flat, well-oriented images (screenshots, properly scanned documents), you can disable preprocessing for faster results:

bash

paddleocr api --model_type ocr --file_path "./document.pdf" --use_doc_unwarping False --use_doc_orientation_classify False

Keep preprocessing enabled when:

The input is a photo of a curved or folded document
The document has significant perspective distortion
Orientation is uncertain (rotated 90/180/270 degrees)

Display complete results: Always show the full extracted content to users. Do not truncate with "..." unless content exceeds 10,000 characters. When multiple pages are processed, summarize if needed but provide complete results when explicitly requested.

Handle errors gracefully: When the CLI returns an error, inform the user of the specific issue rather than silently failing or falling back to your own vision capabilities. Common errors:

Authentication: PADDLEOCR_ACCESS_TOKEN invalid or missing
Quota: API rate limit exceeded
No content detected: Image may be blank or contain no text

CLI Reference

Run paddleocr api --help for all options.

For full documentation, see: PaddleOCR Official Documentation