A method and apparatus for representing and controlling documents including rich text for Web based applications and browsers is provided so that editing of rich text can be facilitated within the browsers. The rich text is represented in a memory structure so that various formats may be flexible maintained. Text, images, tables, links and the like are represented in the memory structure, which may be maintained in databases for eventual editing. A controller class and subsidiary classes represent the rich text and provide methods to convert html to the memory structure and back, representing the rich text in a relational database, retrieving the rich text from a relational database, and presenting the rich text for editing. A spell checking facility for the rich text is included.