diff --git a/api/tesseractmain.cpp b/api/tesseractmain.cpp
index bca122523a..647e1263b4 100644
--- a/api/tesseractmain.cpp
+++ b/api/tesseractmain.cpp
@@ -441,10 +441,6 @@ int main(int argc, char** argv) {
 
   int init_failed = api.Init(datapath, lang, enginemode, &(argv[arg_i]),
                              argc - arg_i, &vars_vec, &vars_values, false);
-  if (init_failed) {
-    fprintf(stderr, "Could not initialize tesseract.\n");
-    return EXIT_FAILURE;
-  }
 
   SetVariablesFromCLArgs(&api, argc, argv);
 
@@ -453,6 +449,11 @@ int main(int argc, char** argv) {
     return EXIT_SUCCESS;
   }
 
+  if (init_failed) {
+    fprintf(stderr, "Could not initialize tesseract.\n");
+    return EXIT_FAILURE;
+  }
+
   if (print_parameters) {
      FILE* fout = stdout;
      fprintf(stdout, "Tesseract parameters:\n");