Vim Cheat sheet

Vim, we all know it, some love it, most hate it, never be caught out by the old "go and exit vim" prank again with the below cheat sheet, you may even start to use it too... at least sometimes...

Cursor movement (Inside command/normal mode)

• w - jump by start of words (punctuation considered words)
• W - jump by words (spaces separate words)
• e - jump to end of words (punctuation considered words)
• E - jump to end of words (no punctuation)
• b - jump backward by words (punctuation considered words)
• B - jump backward by words (no punctuation)
• 0 - (zero) start of line
• ^ - first non-blank character of line (same as 0w)
• $ - end of line

Advanced (in order of what I find useful)

• Ctrl+d - move down half a page
• Ctrl+u - move up half a page
• } - go forward by paragraph (the next blank line)
• { - go backward by paragraph (the next blank line)
• gg - go to the top of the page
• G - go the bottom of the page
• : [num] [enter] - Go To that line in the document

Searching

• f [char] - Move to the next char on the current line after the cursor
• F [char] - Move to the next char on the current line before the cursor
• t [char] - Move to before the next char on the current line after the cursor
• T [char] - Move to before the next char on the current line before the cursor
• All these commands can be followed by ; (semicolon) to go to the next searched item, and , (comma) to go the the previous searched item

Insert/Appending/Editing Text

Results in insert mode

• i - start insert mode at cursor
• I - insert at the beginning of the line
• a - append after the cursor
• A - append at the end of the line
• o - open (append) blank line below current line (no need to press return)
• O - open blank line above current line
• cc - change (replace) an entire line
• c  [movement command] - change (replace) from the cursor to the move-to point.
• ex. ce changes from the cursor to the end of the cursor word
• Esc - exit insert mode
• r  [char] - replace a single character with the specified char (does not use insert mode)
• d - delete
• d - [movement command] deletes from the cursor to the move-to point.
• ex. de deletes from the cursor to the end of the current word
• dd - delete the current line

Advanced

• J - join line below to the current one

Marking text (visual mode)

• v - starts visual mode

From here you can move around as in normal mode (hjkl etc.) and can then do a command (such as y, d, or c)

• V - starts linewise visual mode
• Ctrl+v - start visual block mode
• Esc - exit visual mode

Advanced

• O - move to Other corner of block
• o - move to other end of marked area

Visual commands Type any of these while some text is selected to apply the action

• y - yank (copy) marked text
• d - delete marked text
• c - delete the marked text and go into insert mode (like c does above)

Cut and Paste

• yy - yank (copy) a line
• p - put (paste) the clipboard after cursor
• P - put (paste) before cursor
• dd - delete (cut) a line
• x - delete (cut) current character
• X - delete previous character (like backspace)

Exiting

• :w - write (save) the file, but don't exit
• :wq - write (save) and quit
• :q - quit (fails if anything has changed)
• :q! - quit and throw away changes

Search/Replace

• /pattern - search for pattern
• ?pattern - search backward for pattern
• n - repeat search in same direction
• N - repeat search in opposite direction
• :%s/old/new/g - replace all old with new throughout file (gn is better though)
• :%s/old/new/gc - replace all old with new throughout file with confirmations

Working with multiple files

• :e filename - Edit a file
• :tabe - make a new tab
• gt - go to the next tab
• gT - go to the previous tab

Advanced

• :vsp - vertically split windows
• ctrl+ws - Split windows horizontally
• ctrl+wv - Split windows vertically
• ctrl+ww - switch between windows
• ctrl+wq - Quit a window

Marks Marks allow you to jump to designated points in your code.

• m{a-z} - Set mark {a-z} at cursor position
• A capital mark {A-Z} sets a global mark and will work between files
• ‘{a-z} - move the cursor to the start of the line where the mark was set
• ‘’ - go back to the previous jump location

General

• u - undo
• Ctrl+r - redo
• . - repeat last command