A remote document editing system and method are disclosed that permit users of wireless devices having limited capabilities to remotely edit and manage documents located and stored on a central or network server. The document to be edited is separated into text and format components or segments and only the text segment is typically sent or transmitted to the remote device. After editing or review of the document text is complete, the text segment is returned to the network server, where it is recombined with the format segment to reconstruct a new document having edited text but formatting unchanged from the original document.