To detect text from electronic seals that have significant background interference, blurring, text overlapping, and curving, an improved YOLOv8 model named RA-YOLOv8 was developed. The model is primarily based on YOLOv8, with optimized structures in its backbone and neck. The receptive-field attention and efficient multi-scale attention (RFEMA) module is introduced in the backbone. The model’s ability to extract and integrate local and global features is enhanced by combining the attention on the receptive-field spatial feature of the receptive-field attention and coordinate attention (RFCA) module and the cross-spatial learning of the efficient multi-scale attention (EMA) module. The Alterable Kernel Convolution (AKConv) module is incorporated in the neck, enhancing the model’s detection accuracy of curved text by dynamically adjusting the sampling position. Furthermore, to boost the model’s detection performance, the original loss function is replaced with the bounding box regression loss function of Minimum Point Distance Intersection over Union (MPDIoU). Experimental results demonstrate that RA-YOLOv8 surpasses YOLOv8 in terms of precision, recall, and F1 value, with improvements of 0.4%, 1.6%, and 1.03%, respectively, validating its effectiveness and utility in seal text detection.