text selection using javascript and PHP (prototype)

A webpage displaying a piece of html-text from a DB using PHP and javascript. Parts of the text need to be highlighted with a background color also based on record(s) from the DB containing start character index and length. The user must be able to select a portion of the text and that is then to be stored as an additional section to be highlighted. Note the text may contain html tags. Example: - DB contains "To be or not to be." as well as a record with start=9 lenght=3. - The text should be displayed with 'not' having a yellow background. - User selects the second 'be', - an additional record is to be stored with start=16, length=2 ( action of capturing and storing may be done using either an event or a button ) - The text is then re-displayed with both 'not' and the second 'be' with a yellow background color. An example of similar functionality can be found here: [login to view URL] I am only interested in consistently selecting specific pieces of text that are then highlighted. I am not at this time interested in any other functionality on that site as i will use this as a prototype only for annotations, not comments. Aspects such as overlapping selections or a selection inside an existing selection can be ignored at this time. That level of finetuning will be done at a much later stage as part of a much bigger project. At the moment i just want to see the basic functionality working as described in the example. Read attached file carefully ! I've split the functionality in steps so you better understand it. Take especially note of phase 2 where you need to consistently select the right portion of the text even when there is html present in the displayed text. WARNING: already 2 coders have said they can do it but have failed to come up with any kind of solution and have basically wasted my time. For that reason please only bid if you already know how to get that done. Also there will be no escrow until you show me phase 2: text with html in it, as a working demo.