Patent ID: 8842322

Claim:
An image layout apparatus comprising: a memory; a processor coupled to the memory; a setting unit configured to set trimming positions of an image file in association with the image file, wherein the set trimming positions are configured to be used to trim the image file to produce a trimmed image for display in a document; a layout unit configured to lay out a plurality of trimmed images on the document according to layout positions and to display the plurality of trimmed images on a display device, wherein the plurality of trimmed image includes a first trimmed image and a second trimmed image; a determining unit configured to determine whether two displayed trimmed images are from the same image file by determining, for each image file used to produce the two displayed trimmed images, at least one of (i) whether a name of each image file is the same and (ii) whether binary data of each image file is the same; a computing unit configured to compute, when the determining unit determines that the first trimmed image and the second trimmed image are from the same image file, an overlapping area and an overlapping size ratio, wherein the overlapping area is a region within which the trimming positions of the first trimmed image and the trimming positions of the second trimmed image lap over each other and wherein the overlapping size ratio is a percentage that represents a measure of the relative size of the computed overlapping area to a size of one of the first trimmed image and the second trimmed image, wherein the determining unit further is configured to determine whether the first trimmed image and the second trimmed image are duplicate trimmed images by determining whether the computed overlapping size ratio is smaller than a predetermined overlapping size ratio; a notifying unit configured to perform notification; and a preventing unit configured to prevent the notifying unit from performing the notification when the determining unit determines that the computed overlapping size ratio is smaller than a predetermined overlapping size ratio, and to permit the notifying unit to perform the notification when the determining unit determines that the computed overlapping size ratio is not smaller than a predetermined overlapping size ratio, wherein the setting unit, the layout unit, the determining unit, the computing unit, the notifying unit, and the preventing unit are implemented by the processor coupled to the memory.