short vim commands reference

vimcommands

A brief reference for all necessary VIM editor commands.

Usually, one-letter upper command means the same as lower one, but goes without taking punctuation into account. For instance, cw is for changing one word, and cW is the same but not counting punctuation. Or, the other case, to work at beginning of line, not at the current position.

Also, double-letter command (i.e. cc, dd, yy) to affect the whole line.

• vim <filename> - open file
• vim +*n* <filename> - open file at line n
• vim +/pattern <filename> - open file at the first occurence of pattern
• view <filename> - view file in read-only mode. Same as vim -R <filename>
• vi -r or ex -r - a list of any files that the system has saved
• vim -r <filename> - recover file (in case system crashed while editing)
• :w to overwrite the source file with the current buffer.

It is possible to specify the range of lines to be saved in as a new file: :11,180w filename

• :r filename to read a specified file into a current file. Synonim for :read.
• :args - to see all arguements vim was launched with
• CTRL ^ - to move edit the other file specified in args

Move

• h - moving left
• l - moving right
• j - moving down
• k - moving up

Scrolling screens:

• CTRL F - forward
• CTRL B - backward

Scrolling half-screens:

• CTRL D - down (forward)
• CTRL U - up (backward)
• + - move to the first character of next line
• - - move to the first character of previous line
• e, E - move to the end of the word
• w, W - move forward one word
• b, B - move backward one word
• $ - end of line
• 0 - beginning of line
• z ENTER - move cursor to the to the beginning of line and move the screen down til the line is the first to appear
• z. - move the line to the center of screen and scroll
• z- - move current line to bottom of screen and scroll
• H - move to home - the top line
• M - move to middle line
• L - move to last line
• nH - move n lines below top line
• nL - move to n lines above last line
• ^ - move to first nonblank character of the current line
• n| - move to column n of the current line
• ( or ) - move to beginning of current sentence or next sentence
• { or } - move to beginnig of current parapraph or next parapraph
• [[ or ]] - move to beginning of current section or next section

Editing

Deletion

• x - one character. But 5x is for five ones.
• d - actually, delete
• c - change
• S - delete line and substitute text
• R - overstrilke existing characters with new text
• u - undo last change
• U - return to original state

Adding text

• i - insert text at the current position
• I - insert text at the beginnig of line
• a - append text at the current position
• A - append text at the beginnig of line
• o - open new line below cursor for new text
• O - open new line above cursor for new text
• J - join current and next line (never mix it with lower j)

Other

• ~ - toggle case
• . - repeat last action
• P, p - place text from buffer
• ZZ - save edits and quit file. (write command saves the whole file, although ZZ affects edits only. It is useful to use ZZ when editing large files.)
• CTRL L - redraw the screen
• CTRL G - shows some info (in case you're lost in a file)
• `` (two backquotes) - return to place where you started your search or place from where you moved with G command
• nG - goto n line of file. After this commang you can return to where you were with `` command

Search

• / - search
• n - repeat search in same direction
• N - repeat search in opposite direction
• / ENTER - repeat search forward
• ? ENTER - repeat search backword
• :set nowrapscan - read more on the Internet
• fx - find the next occurence of x on the line
• Fx - find the previous occurence of x on the line
• tx - move cursor to before the next occurence of x on the line
• Tx - move cursor to after previous occurence of x on the line
• ; - repeat previous find command the same direction
• , - repeat previous find command the opposite direction
• :g/pattern - an ex editor global search command. :g/pattern/p - to show all occurences
• Use :g! (with '!' mark) to show all lines not including the pattern
• You can specify a range of lines :g will search in: :12,18g/pattern/p

• " - using buffers
• mx - mark position with any letter (better to use lowercase)
• 'x - move cursor to a line marked as x
• x - move cursor to a character marked by x