The present invention provides data structure, methods, and computer programs for storing text data used by a computer program to display information on a display terminal. Importantly, the present invention provides a data structure in which the data strings traditionally stored in the computer program are removed from the computer program and stored in the data structure. The data strings are associated with individual 16 bit identification numbers, called tokens, which are used to indicate the location of the data strings in the data structure. In light of this, the data strings are removed from the source code of the computer program and replaced with tokens that address the data strings in the data structure. As such, to display a data string, the computer program outputs a token associated with the data string and the command to display it to the display management module, and the data string is located in the data structure and displayed on the display terminal. The data structure may include not only ASCII characters, but also extended ASCII characters different from those used in the standard ASCII table and a double byte characters set (DBCS). As such, the data structure supports not only languages that use ASCII and extended ASCII characters, but also graphical languages that use DBCS characters. The data structure also includes font areas for storing font data associated with extended ASCII characters not displayable with the standard ASCII font set in the font module and DBCS characters. In one embodiment, the font area includes only font data for the DBCS characters that are used in the data strings stored in the data structure, thereby minimizing data storage.