Patent ID: 8045194

Claim:
A document management system including a document storage device that stores document data and management information of the document data, and a printing device that prints the document data stored in the document storage device onto at least one document-data printed sheet, the document management system comprising: a management unit adapted to manage a print history of images based on the document data printed by the printing device and to manage information indicating whether or not a non-disposed sheet remains, the non-disposed sheet being a sheet from among the document data-printed sheet(s) that has not been disposed, and the information indicating whether or not the non-disposed sheet remains being based on the number of document data-printed sheet(s) and the number of at least one sheet which has been disposed of among the document data-printed sheet(s); a receiving unit adapted to receive a deletion instruction for at least one set of document data stored in the document storage device; a first deletion unit adapted to delete the document data targeted for deletion from the document storage device based on the deletion instruction; and a second deletion unit adapted to delete the management information of the document data targeted for deletion from the document storage device in accordance with the information managed by said management unit indicating that the non-disposed sheet does not remain, wherein the management information is used for managing the information managed by said management unit, and wherein each of said management unit, receiving unit, first deletion unit, and second deletion unit are implemented at least in part by a computer, and wherein the at least one sheet which has been disposed of has been disposed of by shredding.