Patent ID: 8564796

Claim:
A method of controlling an image processing apparatus, comprising: a receiving step of receiving PDL data via a network; an image data generating step of generating image data based on the received PDL data; a storage step of storing the received PDL data, the generated image data and a document file in a storage unit, the document file including a path to the stored PDL data and a path to the stored image data; a metadata generation request step of detecting, from the storage unit, a document file whose metadata is not created, and requesting, via the network, an other apparatus to generate metadata associated with the detected document file by notifying the other apparatus of a path to the detected document file and a path to a metadata directory, wherein the other apparatus is different from the image processing apparatus, and wherein the other apparatus mounts a first directory including the detected document file and the metadata directory based on the notified path to the detected document file and the notified path to the metadata directory, and generates, in the mounted metadata directory, the metadata associated with the detected document file based on the path to the stored PDL data and the path to the stored image data which are included in the detected document file included in the mounted first directory; and a metadata storage step of storing the metadata generated by the other apparatus in the metadata directory of the storage unit, the stored metadata being associated with the detected document file whose metadata was requested in the metadata generation request step.