# Can Blueprints (and other assets) be serialized as text?

**URL:** <https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/can-blueprints-and-other-assets-be-serialized-as-text/282552>\
**Category:** Blueprint\
**Tags:** Versioning, serialization, unreal-engine, Blueprint, question\
**Created:** [May 5, 2014, 9:34am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/can-blueprints-and-other-assets-be-serialized-as-text/282552 "2014-05-05T09:34:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Arges\_2](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Arges\_2](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Arges_2)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 9:34am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/can-blueprints-and-other-assets-be-serialized-as-text/282552/1 "2014-05-05T09:34:13Z")

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Looking at the uasset files for the example blueprints, it looks like they’re saved on a binary format by default. Is there an option to serialize them as text? That would help with diff’ing and merging.

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**Author:** ![Shadowriver](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Shadowriver](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Shadowriver)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 10:48am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/can-blueprints-and-other-assets-be-serialized-as-text/282552/2 "2014-05-05T10:48:44Z")

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Nope, BUT! there is graphical diff tool for blueprints (without merge sadly)

> **[Diffing Blueprints in Unreal Engine 4](https://www.unrealengine.com/de/blog/diffing-blueprints)**
>
> In an earlier post, we discussed asset diffing in Unreal Engine 4, but only briefly covered our tool specifically for diffing blueprints. We’re back today with a tutorial video designed to further explain the Blueprint diff tool.

as well as when you copy blueprint in to clipboard they are copies as text and when you paste that text is interpenetrated but you can’t save blueprint in that form other then copy and pasting

Epic is aware of demand on text from blueprints so maybe in some update better tools will apper

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**Author:** ![Arges\_2](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Arges\_2](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Arges_2)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 11:18am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/can-blueprints-and-other-assets-be-serialized-as-text/282552/3 "2014-05-05T11:18:17Z")

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Thanks! I’m aware of the blueprint diff’ing. I’m a programmer myself, but it was while experimenting with blueprints that I realized that things were serialized in a binary format. I can see level merging becoming an issue as well.

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**Author:** ![lmm\_loli](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@lmm\_loli](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/lmm_loli)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 8:57am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/can-blueprints-and-other-assets-be-serialized-as-text/282552/4 "2015-05-22T08:57:04Z")

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I have same question - -#