Abstract: A word processing system is provided with separate data structures in system memory (4). One of these, the internal image, contains the calculated graphics image and another the operator's alphanumeric character input. When displaying, the two images are merged together with the annotation overlay effectively overlaying the graphics overlay. In this way, if the operator erases something on the annotation overlay, the contents of the graphics overlay reappear. During the display of the calculated image and as the operator adds annotations to the display, overlaying conflicts between the graphics image and an alphanumeric character added by the operator are resolved in favor of the alphanumeric character. When an overlaying conflict does exist, the alphanumeric character is highlighted by video reversing to indicate that it is hiding a portion of the graphics image.