rapidocr merges rapidocr_onnxruntime, rapidocr_openvino and rapidocr_paddle, and adds support for PyTorch inference.
In rapidocr>=2.0.0,<=2.0.5, the ONNX Runtime CPU build is used as the default inference engine. You can install another inference engine and switch to GPU inference through the corresponding parameters, which later pages describe in detail.
Starting from rapidocr>=2.0.6, ONNX Runtime is no longer a dependency, although it remains the default inference engine. From that version onwards you need to install the inference engine you want to use yourself.
If all goes well, a single command is enough to get started. The rapidocr package is about 27.2 MB and contains three models: text detection, text line orientation classification and text recognition. The small models are compact enough to be bundled into the wheel, so pip install is all that is needed.
$rapidocrcheck
# The installation is correct when you see the following output[INFO]2026-06-2312:51:43,979[RapidOCR]base.py:23:Usingengine_name:onnxruntime
[INFO]2026-06-2312:51:44,045[RapidOCR]download_file.py:60:Fileexistsandisvalid:/usr/local/lib/python3.12/dist-packages/rapidocr/models/PP-OCRv6_det_small.onnx
[INFO]2026-06-2312:51:44,046[RapidOCR]main.py:63:Using/usr/local/lib/python3.12/dist-packages/rapidocr/models/PP-OCRv6_det_small.onnx
[INFO]2026-06-2312:51:44,127[RapidOCR]base.py:23:Usingengine_name:onnxruntime
[INFO]2026-06-2312:51:44,129[RapidOCR]download_file.py:60:Fileexistsandisvalid:/usr/local/lib/python3.12/dist-packages/rapidocr/models/ch_ppocr_mobile_v2.0_cls_mobile.onnx
[INFO]2026-06-2312:51:44,129[RapidOCR]main.py:63:Using/usr/local/lib/python3.12/dist-packages/rapidocr/models/ch_ppocr_mobile_v2.0_cls_mobile.onnx
[INFO]2026-06-2312:51:44,190[RapidOCR]base.py:23:Usingengine_name:onnxruntime
[INFO]2026-06-2312:51:44,260[RapidOCR]download_file.py:60:Fileexistsandisvalid:/usr/local/lib/python3.12/dist-packages/rapidocr/models/PP-OCRv6_rec_small.onnx
[INFO]2026-06-2312:51:44,260[RapidOCR]main.py:63:Using/usr/local/lib/python3.12/dist-packages/rapidocr/models/PP-OCRv6_rec_small.onnx
Success!rapidocrisinstalledcorrectly!
Run the following command. The installation succeeded if the recognized text is printed in the terminal.