In one aspect of the invention, a system and method are provided for associating multi-media data with an electronic document. A first document editing software application opens a second multi-media capture application. The first application provides the second application with file names and a file system location at which to store created data files. A user uses the multi-media capture application to capture or create multi-media data. The second application then creates files including the multi-media data using the file names provided by the first application. The second application stores the files at the file system location provided by the first application. Because the first application provided the file names and file system location of the multi-media data to the second application, the first application may easily determine where the data is stored. The first application may then retrieve the data from this location to display to the user.