Paddleocr Text Recognition

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

Method 1: Python API (Recommended)

Run a Python script to call the PaddleOCR API directly:

pythonCopy code
import json, os, requests, sys, time

JOB_URL = "https://paddleocr.aistudio-app.com/api/v2/ocr/jobs"
TOKEN = os.environ.get("PADDLEOCR_ACCESS_TOKEN")
MODEL = "PaddleOCR-VL-1.6"

headers = {"Authorization": f"bearer {TOKEN}"}

optional_payload = {
    "useDocOrientationClassify": False,
    "useDocUnwarping": False,
    "useChartRecognition": False,
}

# For URL input:
headers["Content-Type"] = "application/json"
payload = {"fileUrl": file_url, "model": MODEL, "optionalPayload": optional_payload}
job_response = requests.post(JOB_URL, json=payload, headers=headers)

# For local file input:
data = {"model": MODEL, "optionalPayload": json.dumps(optional_payload)}
with open(file_path, "rb") as f:
    job_response = requests.post(JOB_URL, headers=headers, data=data, files={"file": f})

jobId = job_response.json()["data"]["jobId"]

# Poll for results:
while True:
    result = requests.get(f"{JOB_URL}/{jobId}", headers=headers).json()["data"]
    if result["state"] == "done":
        break
    elif result["state"] == "failed":
        print(f"Job failed: {result['errorMsg']}")
        sys.exit()
    time.sleep(5)

# Get OCR text:
jsonl_url = result["resultUrl"]["jsonUrl"]
lines = requests.get(jsonl_url).text.strip().split('\n')
for line in lines:
    page_result = json.loads(line)["result"]
    for res in page_result["layoutParsingResults"]:
        # res["markdown"]["text"] contains the recognized text
        print(res["markdown"]["text"])

Method 2: CLI

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

Important Notes

• Always use PADDLEOCR_ACCESS_TOKEN env var for auth, never hardcode tokens
• For flat images (screenshots, properly scanned docs), disable preprocessing for speed: useDocOrientationClassify: False, useDocUnwarping: False
• Display full extracted content, don't truncate with "..." unless exceeding 10,000 chars
• Handle errors gracefully: auth issues, rate limits, blank images