Patent ID: 8670862

Claim:
A document managing system comprising: a document generating apparatus that forms images including codes obtained by encoding information on a printing medium to generate a metal embedded document; a document discarding apparatus that determines according to the codes whether the metal embedded document can be discarded, and, in a case where the metal embedded document is found to be discardable, discarding the metal embedded document; and a document managing apparatus that is connected to the document generating apparatus and the document discarding apparatus through a communication unit that manages the metal embedded document according to the codes, wherein the document discarding apparatus includes: a metal detector that detects presence or absence of a metal embedded into a printing medium on which the metal embedded document is recorded, wherein the presence or absence of the metal indicates whether or not the metal embedded document is confidential; a code reader that reads a code displayed on the metal embedded document; an instruction accept portion that accepts an instruction to discard the metal embedded document; a document discarding portion that discards the metal embedded document; a first determining unit that, according to the presence or absence of the metal detected by the metal detector, determines whether the metal embedded document may be discarded in the document discarding portion; a second determining unit that, according to the code read by the code reader, determines whether the metal embedded document may be discarded in the document discarding portion; and a document discarding control unit that, in a case where the instruction accept portion accepts the instruction to discard the metal embedded document, on condition that the first determining unit and the second determining unit both determine that the metal embedded document can be discarded in the document discarding portion, controls the document discarding portion to discard the metal embedded document, wherein the first determining unit that, when the metal detector detects the presence of the metal embedded into the printing medium, determines the metal embedded document can not be discarded in the document discarding portion.