Patent ID: 8493595

Claim:
An image processing apparatus which generates metadata for searching for an object in document images formed from a plurality of pages and transmits the metadata to an external apparatus, comprising: a region division unit configured to divide each page in the document images into regions in accordance with attributes, the divided regions including a body region having a body attribute and a caption region having a caption attribute adjacent to an object; a character recognition unit configured to perform character recognition for the caption region and the body region divided by said region division unit, thereby obtaining character information of the body region and character information of the caption region; a first assignment unit configured to assign an identifier to the object adjacent to the caption region, the identifier being an identifier for identifying the caption region; a metadata extraction unit configured to detect the character information of the body region containing an expression synonymous with the character information of the caption region, and extract, as metadata of the object, character information including information other than the expression synonymous with the character information of the caption region from the detected character information of the body region; a second assignment unit configured to assign the same identifier that is assigned by the first assignment unit to the metadata extracted by the metadata extraction unit; a document image transmission unit configured to transmit, in a predetermined page unit, information of the object to which the identifier has been assigned by the first assignment unit; and a metadata transmission unit configured to transmit, in order to associate the metadata with the object, the metadata to which the same identifier has been assigned by the second assignment unit after processes of the region division unit, the character recognition unit, the first assignment unit, the metadata extraction unit, the second assignment unit and the document image transmission unit are executed for all of the plurality of pages.