14. A computer-implemented word processing system, comprising: one or more processors and a memory; an unformatted data structure storing a series of characters; a character location data structure identifying locations for the placement, in a displayed word processing document, of characters in the unformatted data structure; a character format file defining formatting information for items in the displayed word processing document; an edit manager that, in response to a command to edit characters in the word processing document, is programmed to generate an entry in the character location file identifying a location of the edited text in the unformatted data structure, and a location of the edited text in the word processing document that differs from the location in the unformatted data structure, wherein the edit manager is programmed to respond to a command to delete particular characters from the word processing document by adding an entry to the character location file that indicates that the particular characters are deleted from the word processing document and leaving the particular characters in the unformatted data structure.
14. A computer-implemented word processing system, comprising: one or more processors and a memory; an unformatted data structure storing a series of characters; a character location data structure identifying locations for the placement, in a displayed word processing document, of characters in the unformatted data structure; a character format file defining formatting information for items in the displayed word processing document; an edit manager that, in response to a command to edit characters in the word processing document, is programmed to generate an entry in the character location file identifying a location of the edited text in the unformatted data structure, and a location of the edited text in the word processing document that differs from the location in the unformatted data structure, wherein the edit manager is programmed to respond to a command to delete particular characters from the word processing document by adding an entry to the character location file that indicates that the particular characters are deleted from the word processing document and leaving the particular characters in the unformatted data structure. 15. The system of claim 14 , wherein each group of contiguous similarly formatted characters in the unformatted data structure is associated with a reference to an entry in the character format file.