Patent ID: 8307449

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: a storage unit configured to store a plurality of electronic documents, each of which includes first attribute information pertaining to a whole of the corresponding electronic document and second attribute information pertaining to each of pages of the corresponding electronic document; a merging unit configured to merge some of the electronic documents stored in said storage unit to thereby generate a merged electronic document therefrom; and an addition unit configured to add new first attribute information pertaining to a whole of the merged electronic document to the merged electronic document, based on the second attribute information pertaining to each of pages of each of the electronic documents merged by said merging unit to generate the merged electronic document, wherein a value for the first attribute information for each of the plurality of electronic documents, a value for the new first attribute information for the merged electronic document, and a value for the second attribute information for each page of each of the electronic documents merged by said merging unit to generate the merged electronic document are selected from a same set of possible values, wherein said addition unit is configured to select a value, which is set to at least one of the second attribute information for each page of each of the electronic documents merged by said merging unit, as the value for the new first attribute information based on an analysis of the values set for the second attribute information for each page of each of the electronic documents merged by said merging unit, wherein said addition unit is configured to add new second attribute information pertaining to each of pages of the merged electronic document to the merged electronic document on a page-by-page basis, and wherein said addition unit is configured to determine the new first attribute information based on a ratio between different kinds of the second attribute information set to the total number of pages of the electronic documents merged by said merging unit to generate the merged electronic document.