Patent ID: 8055084

Claim:
An image processing device which compresses image data which is created by electronizing of a document, to generate compressed image data, comprising: a scanner configured to read image data of a document; a first document type judgment unit configured to determine from the image data whether the document contains only characters or characters and line drawings; a second document type judgment unit configured to determine from the image data whether the document is a chromatic document; a compression format generating unit configured to set a color compression method when, the first document type judgment unit determines that the document contains only characters or characters and line drawings, and the second document type judgment unit determines that the document is chromatic, the document is a gray document, the document being a gray document when the first document type judgment unit determines that the document does not contain only characters or characters and line drawings, and the second document type judgment unit determines that the document is not chromatic, or the first document type judgment unit determines that the document does not contain only characters or characters and line drawings, and the second document type judgment unit determines that the document is chromatic, the compression format generating unit configured to set a binary compression method when the document is a black-character-only document, the document being a black-character-only document when the first document type judgment unit determines that the document contains only characters or characters and line drawings, and the second document type judgment unit determines that the document is not chromatic; a first image compression unit configured to perform a binary compression encoding of the image data when the compression format generating unit sets the binary compression method; a separation unit configured to separate the image data into binary image data and multi-level image data based on the determinations of the first and second document type judgment units; and a second image compression unit configured to perform a color compression encoding on the multi-level image data, wherein the first image compression unit is configured to perform a binary compression encoding of the binary image data, and at least one of the first document type judgment unit and the second document type judgment unit includes a unit configured to request a user to select a document type setting of one of a plurality of predetermined document types including an only character or character and line drawing setting, a chromatic document setting, and an achromatic setting, for selecting one of the plurality of predetermined document types.