18. The system of claim 17 , further comprising an encoder to encode the compressed second legacy data record in a readable text format.
17. A system for storing rich text data, comprising: a processor; a plain text component operable by the processor to identify plain text in the rich text data and store the plain text in a first legacy data record; a rich text attribute component operable by the processor to identify rich text attributes in the rich text data and generate a second legacy data record which comprises the rich text attributes, wherein the rich text attributes specify richness features of the plain text, and the second legacy data record is prefixed by a token which includes a unique string of characters recognizable by a user and by an application capable of applying the rich text attributes to the plain text to present the rich text data; a record compressing component operable by the processor to compress the second data record, and a record storing component operable by the processor to store the second legacy data record inline with the first legacy data record in a legacy data repository of a data storage system, wherein the first legacy data record is separate from the second legacy data record so that the plain text appears without rich text, the plain text appearing in one or more plain text lines and the rich text appearing in one or more rich text lines prefixed by the token.