Patent ID: 7936897

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising; an image inputting section through which image information in the form of object data is received from an external apparatus, the image information containing object information and secure object information, the object information representing at least one object and the secure object information representing a type of the secure object; a first image-data generator that generates first image data for forming an image, the first image data being generated in accordance with the object information; a secure object identifying section that detects secure object information and identifies a type of the secure object; a characteristic information detector that extracts the secure object from the received image information based on the type of the secure object identified by the secure object identifying section; a second image-data generator that generates second image data based on the secure object extracted by said characteristic information detector; an image data combiner that combines the first image data with the second image data; and an image forming section that forms an image in accordance with the image data combined in said image data combiner.