Patent ID: 8189211

Claim:
An image processing unit, comprising: an image data input unit to input image data; a page-description language (PDL) converter to convert the input image data input by the image data input unit to page-description language data, and to transmit an end-of-page command when a page-description language conversion for image data for one page is completed; a special document determination unit, that receives the input image data from the image data input unit and, to determine whether the input image data includes image data having a special document for each page; and an image treatment command adding unit to instruct the PDL converter to wait for a transmission of the end-of-page command until the special document determination unit issues a determination result; the image treatment command adding unit generating an image treatment command, using a PDL command, that instructs a given specific image treatment for image data for one page of the image input data input from the image data input unit when the special document determination unit determines that the determination result includes image data having a special document, the image treatment command adding unit transmitting the image treatment command before transmitting the end-of-page command or simultaneously with the end-of-page command.