A display control apparatus includes an image display that displays a document image representing a document file; an accepting unit that accepts an operation to point a portion in the document image displayed in the image display; an extracting unit that, upon acceptance of the operation to point the portion in the document image by the accepting unit, extracts each image portion surrounded by pixels other than white pixels from the entire document image if a ratio of the white pixels in the pixels in the document image is higher than or equal to a predetermined threshold value in an area of a predetermined size centered at the pointed portion; and a display controller that performs control so as to display information concerning the image portion having the shortest distance from the portion, among the image portions extracted by the extracting unit, in the image display.