Useful VIM commands

February 26, 2022 · View on GitHub

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
e - jump forwards to the end of a word
0 - jump to the start of the line
gg - go to the first line of the document
G - go to the last line of the document

Editing

r - replace a single character.
R - replace more than one character, until ESC is pressed.
J - join line below to the current one with one space in between
cc - change (replace) entire line
u - undo
U - restore (undo) last changed line
. - repeat last command

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
aw - mark a word
ab - a block with ()
aB - a block with {}
Esc - exit visual mode

Visual commands

> - shift text right
< - shift text left
y - yank (copy) marked text
d - delete marked text
~ - switch case
u - change marked text to lowercase
U - change marked text to uppercase

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

Marks and positions

:marks - list of marks
ma - set current position for mark A
'a - jump to position of mark A
:changes - list of changes

Macros

qa - record macro a
q - stop recording macro
@a - run macro a

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
gp - put (paste) the clipboard after cursor and leave cursor after the new text
dd - delete (cut) a line
2dd - delete (cut) 2 lines
D - delete (cut) to the end of the line
d$ - delete (cut) to the end of the line
x - delete (cut) character

Indent text

>> - indent (move right) line one shiftwidth
<< - de-indent (move left) line one shiftwidth

Exiting

:w - write (save) the file, but don't exit
:w !sudo tee % - write out the current file using sudo
:wq - write (save) and quit
:q - quit (fails if there are unsaved changes)
:q! - quit and throw away unsaved changes
:wqa - write (save) and quit on all tabs