1. An apparatus for displaying an image, which displays a stroke that is drawn by an input operation, by superimposing the image on a background image, on a display device, the apparatus comprising: circuitry configured to: create an electronic document including stroke data including a drawing position for reproducing the stroke, image data of a stroke image for displaying the stroke, image data of the background image, and bibliographical information including version information of the apparatus; extract the stroke data and the image data of the background image from the electronic document when the circuitry determines that a page of the electronic document can be restored from the stroke data, based on the bibliographical information included in the electronic document; generate image data of an image that is different from the stroke image, for displaying the stroke from the stroke data; display the image on the display device so as to be superimposed on the background image; extract the image data of the stroke image and the image data of the background image from the electronic document when the circuitry determines that the page of the electronic document cannot be restored from the stroke data, based on the bibliographical information included in the electronic document; and display the stroke image on the display device so as to be superimposed on the background image.