Vim Cheat Sheet
Vim is a terminal text editor, simple but very powerful and versatile, here is a basic cheat sheet:
Cursor Movement
h - move cursor left
j - move cursor down
k - move cursor up
l - move cursor right
H - move to top of screen
M - move to middle of screen
L - move to bottom of screen
w - jump forwards to the start of a word
W - jump forwards to the start of a word (words can contain punctuation)
e - jump forwards to the end of a word
E - jump forwards to the end of a word (words can contain punctuation)
b - jump backwards to the start of a word
B - jump backwards to the start of a word (words can contain punctuation)
0 - jump to the start of the line
$ - jump to the end of the line
gg - go to the first line of the document
G - go to the last line of the document
5G - go to line 5
} - jump to next paragraph (or function/block, when editing code)
{ - jump to previous paragraph (or function/block, when editing code)
zz - center cursor on screen
Ctrl + e - move screen down one line (without moving cursor)
Ctrl + y - move screen up one line (without moving cursor)
Ctrl + b - move back one full screen
Ctrl + f - move forward one full screen
Tip Prefix a cursor movement command with a number to repeat it. For example, 4j moves down 4 lines.
Insert mode - inserting/appending text
i - insert before the cursor I - insert at the beginning of the line a - insert (append) after the cursor A - insert (append) at the end of the line o - append (open) a new line below the current line O - append (open) a new line above the current line ea - insert (append) at the end of the word Esc - exit insert mode
Editing
r - replace a single character J - join line below to the current one with one space in between gJ - join line below to the current one without space in between cc - change (replace) entire line C - change (replace) to the end of the line cw - change (replace) to the end of the word s - delete character and substitute text S - delete line and substitute text (same as cc) u - undo Ctrl + r - redo
Marking text (visual mode)
v - start visual mode, mark lines, then do a command (like y-yank)
V - start linewise visual mode
o - move to other end of marked area
O - move to other corner of block
Ctrl + v - start visual block mode
aw - mark a word
ab - a block with ()
aB - a block with {}
ib - inner block with ()
iB - inner block with {}
Esc - exit visual mode
Visual commands
y - yank (copy) marked text d - delete marked text ~ - switch case
Registers
:reg - show registers content "xy - yank into register x "xp - paste contents of register x Tip Registers are being stored in ~/.viminfo, and will be loaded again on next restart of vim. Tip Register 0 contains always the value of the last yank command.
Marks
:marks - list of marks ma - set current position for mark A a - jump to position of mark A y`a - yank text to position of mark A
Macros
qa - record macro a q - stop recording macro @a - run macro a @@ - rerun last run macro
Cut and paste
yy - yank (copy) a line 2yy - yank (copy) 2 lines yw - yank (copy) the characters of the word from the cursor position to the start of the next word y$ - yank (copy) to end of line p - put (paste) the clipboard after cursor P - put (paste) before cursor dd - delete (cut) a line 2dd - delete (cut) 2 lines dw - delete (cut) the characters of the word from the cursor position to the start of the next word D - delete (cut) to the end of the line d$ - delete (cut) to the end of the line x - delete (cut) character
Exiting
:w - write (save) the file, but don't exit :w !sudo tee % - write out the current file using sudo :wq or :x or ZZ - write (save) and quit :q - quit (fails if there are unsaved changes) :q! or ZQ - quit and throw away unsaved changes :wqa - write (save) and quit on all tabs
Search and 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 :%s/old/new/gc - replace all old with new throughout file with confirmations :noh - remove highlighting of search matches
Search in multiple files
:vimgrep /pattern/ {`{file}`} - search for pattern in multiple files
e.g. :vimgrep /foo/ **/*
:cn - jump to the next match
:cp - jump to the previous match
:copen - open a window containing the list of matches
Working with multiple files
:e file - edit a file in a new buffer :bnext or :bn - go to the next buffer :bprev or :bp - go to the previous buffer :bd - delete a buffer (close a file) :ls - list all open buffers :sp file - open a file in a new buffer and split window :vsp file - open a file in a new buffer and vertically split window Ctrl + ws - split window Ctrl + ww - switch windows Ctrl + wq - quit a window Ctrl + wv - split window vertically Ctrl + wh - move cursor to the left window (vertical split) Ctrl + wl - move cursor to the right window (vertical split) Ctrl + wj - move cursor to the window below (horizontal split) Ctrl + wk - move cursor to the window above (horizontal split)
Tabs
:tabnew or :tabnew {page.words.file} - open a file in a new tab
Ctrl + wT - move the current split window into its own tab
gt or :tabnext or :tabn - move to the next tab
gT or :tabprev or :tabp - move to the previous tab
#gt - move to tab number #
:tabmove # - move current tab to the #th position (indexed from 0)
:tabclose or :tabc - close the current tab and all its windows
:tabonly or :tabo - close all tabs except for the current one
:tabdo command - run the command on all tabs (e.g. :tabdo q - closes all opened tabs)
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