Patent ID: 8769406

Claim:
An image display apparatus, comprising: a reading unit for reading a document and obtaining image data, the image data comprising document image data to be displayed; a display unit for displaying said document image data; a setting unit for setting a format designating a type of the document image data, and comprising information defining characteristics of a non-display region, and a condition for the non-display region relating to a number of times said image data has been displayed in an invisible manner; a storage unit to store the format as data that is separate from the image data; a detection unit for detecting coordinates of the non-display region from the image data based on contents of the image data and the characteristics defined by said format; a modification unit for modifying said document image data such that said non-display region of said document image data is displayed in an invisible manner; a control unit for controlling the display unit to display said document image data modified by said modification unit; and an addition unit for adding to said image data format location information comprising information designating the storage unit storing said format.