Take a look at TStream/TFileStream. There is a specific pair of methods called WriteComponent and ReadComponent that will do what you need. However, it may not always work exactly as expected. WriteComponent will take a component as a parameter and will write that component and all components that it owns to a stream, according to the documentation. However, it will not actually write all of its owned components unless it is a TWinControl descendant (or a component type that overrides the WriteComponents method). To store a form and all of the components on it, you would do something like: procedure SaveForm(form : TForm; filename : string); var fstream : TFileStream; begin if form <> nil then begin fstream := TFileStream.Create(filename, fmCreate); try fstream.WriteComponent(form); finally fstream.Free; end; end; end; You could then read it back in with the following: function LoadForm(filename : string) : TForm; var fstream : TFileStream; cmpnt : TComponent; begin Result := nil; fstream := TFileStream.Create(OpenDialog1.FileName, fmOpenRead); try cmpnt := fstream.ReadComponent(nil); {read component from stream} if cmpnt <> nil then begin {if successfully read, ... } if cmpnt is TForm then begin {check that it is a form } Result := cmpnt; {if so, return it } Application.InsertComponent(Result); {and make App owner of it} end else {if not what was expected } cmpnt.Free; {free it and return nil } end; finally fstream.Free; end; end; One thing you should watch out for, however, is that this method writes and reads ALL of the components on the form, even those that were added during design time. This can be problematic when you try to read the form back in. The first item read in will be the form itself, which will be created according to its declaration, which will include all of the controls added at design time. Then, when it begins loading in the owned controls from the stream, it will run into name conflicts when it tries to create those controls that were design-time additions to the form since they already exist when the form is created. One possible way around this is to limit exactly which components are saved to the stream. For example, something like this: for i := 0 to form.ComponentCount - 1 do fstream.WriteComponent(form.Components[i]); This will store one component after another to the stream. You could then read it back with something like: while not (fstream.Position = fstream.Size) do begin cmpnt := fstream.ReadComponent(nil); if cmpnt <> nil then begin form.InsertComponent(cmpnt); if cmpnt is TControl then TControl(cmpnt).Parent := form; end; end; However, watch out when you use this. It is not compatible with some components. For example, when I tried to use this method to load in a TMemo I had saved that contained some text, I received a 'Control has no parent' exception. Apparently, attempting to add text to a TMemo that has no Parent will cause an exception, interrupting the ReadComponent process. With a bit more work and code, you may be able to come up with a more flexible method for loading and saving components. To do so, you will need to take a look at the TFiler components, TReader and TWriter. Oh! One other note -- ReadComponent and WriteComponent will only work with components that have been registered with a call to RegisterClass or RegisterClasses. It uses the list of registered classes as a look-up table to determine how to recreate what is stored in the stream. Unforutnately, Delphi does not automatically register classes. So, you must already have some idea ahead of time about what kinds of controls may be read and written. Make a call to RegisterClasses once during application start-up -- something like: RegisterClasses([TButton, TEdit, TListBox, TMemo, TForm1]);