The present invention relates to on-line detection technology, and fabric texture detecting method and apparatus for detecting and outputting the texture characteristic information of fabric in motion. The fabric texture detecting apparatus includes at least one characteristic extracting device to scan moving fabric under detection to obtain texture characteristic information in at least one direction; one data processing device to process the extracted basic fabric texture characteristic information and to obtain and record the moving amount of each basic woven texture of the moving fabric. The said fabric texture detecting method and apparatus can overcome the influence of shrinkage, tension fluctuation and other causes on alignment, and may be used widely in different fields needing fabric pattern matching, especially in fabric printing, automatic embroidery, automatic cutting, etc.