Patent ID: 9413908
Filing Date: 2016-08-09
CPC Classification: H04N

Claim Text:
1. An image forming apparatus remotely operated by an external terminal, comprising: a hardware processor configured to: generate a first composite image by combining an operation screen image and a hardware key area image, the operation screen image corresponding to an operation screen of the image forming apparatus, the operation screen including a plurality of software keys, and the hardware key area image being an image of an area that includes a plurality of hardware key images corresponding to a plurality of hardware keys of the image forming apparatus; not set a dead area within the plurality of hardware key images and to set the dead area in a portion of an area of at least one first software key among the plurality of software keys, the portion being on a side close to the hardware key area image, and the at least one first software key being adjacent to the hardware key area image; transmit the first composite image as a remote operation image to the external terminal, the remote operation image being an image for use in remote operation of the image forming apparatus; receive first manual input information from the external terminal, the first manual input information being information on manual input to the first composite image displayed as the remote operation image in the external terminal; and determine a content of manual input by an operator on the basis of the first manual input information, the hardware processor being further configured to: when determining on the basis of the first manual input information that the external terminal accepts a touch operation in which a portion other than the dead area is touched within an area of one software key of the at least one first software key, determine that there is manual input to the one software key; when determining on the basis of the first manual input information that the external terminal accepts a touch operation in which the dead area within the area of the at least one first software key is touched, determine that there is no manual input to the at least one first software key; and when determining on the basis of the first manual input information that the external terminal accepts a touch operation in which one hardware key image among the plurality of hardware key images is touched, determine that there is manual input to the one hardware key image.