saving/restoring text and overlays

[Leo Butler]

If I have a buffer with, e.g. display properties set to images, how can
I save that to disk and re-open the saved data so that emacs displays the
same "stuff"? I am not looking to export the buffer using html or latex
or any other markup. I just want to be able to save the formatting
information so that another emacs instance can display exactly the same
document.

I can see how this might be cobbled together by a save-file hook that
stuffs (buffer-substring) of a narrowed buffer into an Eval: stanza at
the end of file. But I am hoping that there is a pre-existing mode that
does what I want.

TIA,
Leo