A method, apparatus, and computer-readable medium for editing an electronic document containing markup language tags are provided. According to the method, a computer application program for editing an electronic document operates in one of two editing modes. In a first editing mode, any markup language tags contained within the document are displayed. In a second editing mode, the markup language tags are not displayed. However, when operating in the second editing mode, a determination is made as to whether any of the markup language tags are empty. For each of the tags that are empty, a placeholder is displayed. The placeholder may comprise the name of the tag or a user-defined text string. The placeholder may be selected and utilized to insert data into the tag, delete the tag, or move the tag without viewing the tag itself.