JTextPane and database persistence

[Terry]

I am using a JTextPane for displaying formatted text and images. Works
great, but I now need database persistence. I am using MySQL for
storage but am having difficulty getting all the format information
from JTextPane. The getText() method returns only the string
information entered (i.e. no formatting). I presumed there is some way
of getting a sequence of bytes that represent all the text and format,
but I am at a loss on how / where to obtain it. I have looked at the
DefaultStyledDocument class and its predecessors, but no luck.

Can anyone shed some light for me on how to proceed?

Thanks
Terry VanDerMaarel