Patent ID: 8185595

Claim:
An information processing apparatus connected to a communication network, the apparatus comprising: at least one processor; a designating unit which designates first electronic data to be moved or copied to a predetermined data storing position; a data type determining unit which determines whether the first electronic data designated by said designating unit is link data to second electronic data; a path information determining unit which, when said data type determining unit determines that the first electronic data designated by said designating unit is link data to the second electronic data, determines whether path information to the second electronic data contained in the link data is local path information used by only the information processing apparatus; an acquisition unit which, when said path information determining unit determines that the path information is local path information, acquires universal path information representing the data storing position commonly used via the communication network; an acquisition determining unit which, when said acquisition unit has not been able to acquire the universal path information representing the data storing position, determines whether the second electronic data linked to the link data can be acquired; and a file processing unit which, when said acquisition unit has acquired the universal path information representing the data storing position, moves or copies, to the predetermined data storing position, link data obtained by replacing the path information with the universal path information, and which, when said acquisition determining unit determines that the second electronic data can be acquired, moves or copies, to the predetermined data storing position, a copy of the second electronic data instead of the link data.