PaddleOCR Document Parsing and Intelligent Text Recognition

Overview

PaddleOCR is an OCR and document intelligence toolkit in the Baidu PaddlePaddle ecosystem. It covers general text recognition, document layout analysis, table parsing, formula recognition, and other capabilities for common document-processing scenarios such as scanned documents, photographed documents, multi-page PDFs, and technical documents.

X-AnyLabeling integrates these capabilities through a dedicated PaddleOCR panel for document understanding and intelligent text recognition workflows. The panel supports layout parsing, text recognition, formula recognition, and table recognition for images and PDF files. After parsing is complete, you can review, edit, copy, and export the recognized results.

Two service modes are supported: you can call the official PaddleOCR API directly, or connect to a PaddleOCR model served through an X-AnyLabeling-compatible remote inference service. Parsed results are saved as local JSON files and displayed in the interface together with source-file regions, structured content, and editable result blocks.

Model Configuration

Official API (Recommended)

The X-AnyLabeling client supports the official PaddleOCR API by default, so you do not need to deploy an additional inference service. When the PaddleOCR panel is opened for the first time and no API information has been configured, the PPOCR API Settings dialog appears automatically. Enter the corresponding API_KEY to enable official API parsing. To update the configuration later, click the gear button at the top of the right-side result panel.

The following official API model options are currently supported in the parsing-model drop-down list:

• PaddleOCR-VL-1.6 (API)
• PaddleOCR-VL (API)

To obtain the required API information:

1. Visit the PaddleOCR website.
2. Open the API call example, switch to the Async Parse tab, and copy the API_KEY.
3. Return to PPOCR API Settings in X-AnyLabeling, paste the key, and confirm.

The configuration is saved locally:

${workspace}/xanylabeling_data/paddleocr/api_settings.json

By default, ${workspace} is the user's home directory, ~. If X-AnyLabeling is started with --work-dir, that directory is used instead.

Local Deployment (Optional)

To run PaddleOCR locally or in a private environment, deploy an inference service with X-AnyLabeling-Server. See the multi-task OCR example for dependency installation and startup instructions.

Make sure X-AnyLabeling-Server has been updated to the latest version, and check that the ppocr_layoutstructv3_vl_1_5 model configuration is available. If you want to implement and integrate your own PaddleOCR inference pipeline, declare the following capability flag in the model configuration. The client uses this flag to determine whether the model can be used in the PaddleOCR panel:

...
capabilities:
  ppocr_pipeline: true
...

After the service starts, reopen the PaddleOCR annotation panel. The Parsing Model drop-down list at the top right displays the available models. Selecting a model without the (API) suffix sends parsing requests to the deployed inference service.

User Guide

You can open PaddleOCR in either of the following ways: click the PaddleOCR icon in the left toolbar, or use the Ctrl+4 shortcut.

After the panel opens, click + New Parsing at the top of the left panel to select files. Confirm Start Parsing to import them; confirmed files are copied to the local PaddleOCR workspace and added to the parsing queue.

The X-AnyLabeling PaddleOCR panel currently supports the following file types:

Type	Extensions
PDF document	.pdf
Image	.bmp, .cif, .gif, .jpeg, .jpg, .png, .tif, .tiff, .webp

PDF files are first rendered locally into per-page PNG previews. Official API parsing submits the original PDF once through Async Jobs, while remote-service parsing continues to use the local preview pages. For multi-page PDFs, the page count, preview images, and recognition results are all retained in the local workspace.

Interface Layout

Overall Layout

The PaddleOCR panel consists of three main areas:

Area	Description
Left file navigation panel	Import files, view recent files, view favorites, search, filter, and delete files
Middle source-file preview area	Display images or PDF pages with PaddleOCR layout blocks, polygon boxes, and category colors overlaid
Right parsing result area	Switch between Document parsing and JSON views, and copy, download, reparse, or edit recognized blocks

Components

Location	Button/Component	Function
Top left	+ New Parsing	Select images or PDFs, then confirm to import and start parsing
Left navigation	Recent	Show recently imported and parsed files
Left navigation	Favorites	Show favorited files only
Left navigation	Search button	Expand the filename search box
Left navigation	Filter button	Filter by sorting rule, file type, and parsing status
Left file item	Star button	Add or remove the current file from favorites
Left file item	Delete button	Delete the source file, JSON file, PDF preview pages, block screenshots, and other related data
Middle page bar	Left/right arrows	Switch to the previous or next PDF page
Middle page bar	Page number input	Jump to a specific PDF page
Middle page bar	Zoom out / zoom in buttons	Zoom the source-file preview area
Middle page bar	Reset zoom button	Restore the preview scale to fit width
Source-file preview area	Floating Copy	Copy the content of the currently hovered block
Top right	Parsing Model	Select an official (API) model or a remote PaddleOCR model
Right view	Document parsing	View layout blocks, text, formulas, tables, and images as cards
Right view	JSON	View the complete JSON result for the current file
Right tools	Gear button	Configure the official PaddleOCR API_KEY
Right tools	Reparse button	Reparse the current file
Right tools	Copy button	Copy Markdown content in the document view, or copy JSON in the JSON view
Right tools	Download button	Download a ZIP file in the document view, or download JSON in the JSON view
Result block card	Copy	Copy the content of a single block
Result block card	Correct	Enter edit mode for the current block
Parsing banner	Cancel Parsing	Cancel the current batch parsing task
Parsing-failed banner	Copy Log	Copy the error log
Parsing-failed banner	Reparse	Reparse the failed file

Parsed Blocks and Editors

After parsing is complete, the right-side Document parsing view displays blocks in layout order. Different block types use different colors:

Type	Example Labels	Color Meaning
Text	text, doc_title, paragraph_title, footer, seal, etc.	Blue
Table	table	Green
Image	image, chart, header_image, footer_image	Purple
Header	header	Light purple
Formula	display_formula, formula, formula_number, algorithm	Yellow
Edited block	Any block	Orange border or edit-state marker

The following editors are currently supported:

Editor	Trigger Scenario	Description
Rich text editor	Plain text, titles, footers, seals, and other non-table or non-formula content	Supports basic rich text editing and saves the result as Markdown/text content
LaTeX formula editor	display_formula, formula, formula_number, algorithm	Supports editing LaTeX source and renders a live preview below
Table editor	table or content recognized as a table structure	Supports cell editing, selection copying, adding and deleting rows or columns, and basic text styling

Data Storage and Directory Structure

The PaddleOCR panel saves imported files and parsed results in the local workspace:

${workspace}/xanylabeling_data/paddleocr/
├── api_settings.json
├── ui_state.json
├── files/
│   ├── example.pdf
│   ├── image.png
│   ├── __PDF_example/
│   │   ├── page_001.png
│   │   └── page_002.png
│   └── __BLOCK_IMAGES_image.png/
│       └── page_001_block_0001.png
└── jsons/
    ├── example.pdf.json
    └── image.png.json

Path	Description
api_settings.json	Cached API_KEY, selected API model, and compatibility API URL for the official PaddleOCR API
ui_state.json	UI state, such as the list of favorited files
files/	Local copies of imported files
files/__PDF_<filename>/	Per-page PNG previews rendered from a PDF
files/__BLOCK_IMAGES_<filename>/	Local crops for image-type blocks
jsons/<filename>.json	PaddleOCR parsing results and edited results for the current file

JSON Data Structure

Each imported file has a corresponding JSON file. The core structure is as follows:

{
  "layoutParsingResults": [
    {
      "prunedResult": {
        "page_count": 1,
        "width": 1240,
        "height": 1754,
        "model_settings": {
          "pipeline_model": "PaddleOCR-VL-1.6",
          "api_mode": "async_jobs"
        },
        "parsing_res_list": [
          {
            "block_label": "text",
            "block_content": "Recognized text content",
            "block_bbox": [100, 120, 500, 180],
            "block_id": 1,
            "block_order": 1,
            "group_id": 1,
            "global_block_id": 1,
            "global_group_id": 1,
            "block_polygon_points": [
              [100, 120],
              [500, 120],
              [500, 180],
              [100, 180]
            ]
          }
        ]
      },
      "markdown": {
        "text": "Full-page Markdown content",
        "images": {
          "page_1:block_1": "files/__BLOCK_IMAGES_image.png/page_001_block_0001.png"
        }
      },
      "outputImages": {},
      "inputImage": "files/image.png"
    }
  ],
  "preprocessedImages": [],
  "dataInfo": {
    "type": "image",
    "numPages": 1,
    "pages": [
      {
        "width": 1240,
        "height": 1754
      }
    ]
  },
  "_ppocr_meta": {
    "status": "parsed",
    "source_path": "files/image.png",
    "updated_at": "2026-04-18 12:00:00",
    "error_message": "",
    "edited_blocks": [],
    "block_image_paths": {},
    "pipeline_model": "PaddleOCR-VL-1.6",
    "api_mode": "async_jobs",
    "api_job_id": "39373553546153984"
  }
}

Key fields:

Field	Description
layoutParsingResults	Page-level parsing results. Images usually have one page, while PDFs can have multiple pages
prunedResult.parsing_res_list	Block list for the current page
block_label	Block type, such as text, table, display_formula, or image
block_content	Recognized content that can be viewed, copied, and edited
block_bbox	Rectangular bounding box of the block, in [x1, y1, x2, y2] format
block_polygon_points	Polygon points of the block, used for highlighting in the preview area
markdown.text	Markdown text returned by PaddleOCR or generated by combining blocks
markdown.images	Mapping of image resources referenced in the Markdown
dataInfo.type	File type. Valid values are image and pdf
dataInfo.numPages	Number of pages
_ppocr_meta.status	Parsing status: pending, parsed, or error
_ppocr_meta.edited_blocks	List of block keys that have been manually edited
_ppocr_meta.block_image_paths	Local resource paths for image-type blocks
_ppocr_meta.pipeline_model	Parsing model that generated the result
_ppocr_meta.api_mode	Official API mode, such as async_jobs
_ppocr_meta.api_job_id	Official Async Jobs task id, when available

Downloading Results

The download button on the right exports different content depending on the current view:

Current View	Downloaded Content
Document parsing	A ZIP file containing doc_0.md, image resources under imgs/, and layout detection visualizations named layout_det_res_*.jpg
JSON	The complete JSON for the current file. The default filename is <original_filename>_by_<model_name>.json