An image processing apparatus that includes a character recognition component, a determining component and a generating component is provided. The determining component determines, when document data is generated that contains first data representing the document and representing the entity in which the characters are mixed and second data containing character code data of the characters recognized by the character recognition component and representing a character block displaying the characters represented by the character code data, whether to hide the character block represented by the second data behind the entity represented by the first data or to display the character block represented by the second data in front of the entity represented by the first data when the document represented by the document data is displayed, based on lightness or distribution of the lightness of a background region around the characters of the entity or the like.