Storage and retrieval of documents using markup languages

A system for storing and retrieving text-based documents stores each of the documents in accordance with a mark-up language that comprises mark-up elements defined by a meta-language such as XML (Extensible Mark-up Language). In particular, each text document includes a plurality of text items, and each text item is associated in the text document with at least one of the mark-up elements. Each text document is stored at a central repository that is in communication with a plurality of user computers. A user can retrieve those documents that are of interest by formulating a search query that is transmitted from a user computer to the central repository. A search engine searches through the text items of each stored text document in order to determine which text documents satisfy the search query. Those text documents that satisfy the search condition are retrieved from the central repository and provided to the user computer for display.