17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the one or more machine-readable media further comprise the database storing the entries for the identified document elements and the anchors.
16. A system comprising: one or more hardware processors; and one or more machine-readable media storing instructions which, when executed by the one or more hardware processors, cause the one or more hardware processors to perform operations comprising: analyzing contents of a document to identify a plurality of document elements that collectively constitute the contents of the document, and causing, for each of the identified document elements, a respective database entry comprising a unique document-element identifier to be stored; creating a plurality of anchors dispersed throughout the document by causing, for each of a plurality of anchor locations, a respective database entry comprising a unique anchor identifier to be stored; causing a document view to be stored that represents the document as an ordered list of the document-element identifiers of the identified document elements, and causing at least some of the anchor identifiers to be listed in the document view interspersed with or nested within the document-element identifiers; and generating, in response to selection of a portion of the document, a referencing address uniquely identifying the selected portion, the referencing address comprising at least one or more anchor identifiers of one or more respective anchors associated with the selected portion.