Vim Commands

Motions

• + — first non-blank character of the next line
• 0 — start of the line
• $ — end of the line
• G — last line of the file
• 1G, gg, :1 or 1gg — first line of the file
• 2G — line 2; <n>G — line n
• /word — search forward for word; n repeats the search
• ggVG — select the whole file: gg moves to the first line, V starts line-wise visual mode, G extends the selection to the last line

Entering insert mode

• i — insert before the cursor
• a — insert after the cursor
• A — insert at the end of the line
• o — open a new line below the cursor and insert
• Go — jump to the last line, then open a new line below it: insert at the end of the file

While in insert mode, Ctrl-o runs exactly one normal-mode command and then returns to insert mode — useful for a single motion without abandoning the edit in progress.

Deleting and changing

• x — delete the character under the cursor
• dw — delete to the start of the next word
• dt" — delete forward up to, but not including, the next "
• di" — delete everything inside the quotes
• da" — delete everything inside the quotes, including the quotes themselves
• d$ — delete from the cursor to the end of the line
• dG — delete from the cursor to the end of the file
• u — undo; Ctrl-r — redo

di and da work with any delimiter pair — di(, da{, di< — and with w, s and p for word, sentence and paragraph. Substituting c for d deletes and enters insert mode.

Substitution

• :s/toReplace/withWord — first match on the current line
• :%s/toReplace/withWord — first match on every line of the file
• :3,4s/toReplace/withWord — first match on lines 3 to 4

Append g to replace every match on each line rather than the first, and c to confirm each replacement.

Opening a file at a given line

• vim +42 myfile.txt — open positioned on line 42
• vim + myfile.txt — open positioned on the last line, in normal mode. The space matters: + followed immediately by text is read as an Ex command to run rather than as a line number, so vim +myfile.txt opens an empty buffer and fails
• vim +/pattern myfile.txt — open positioned at the first match
• vim "+set number" myfile.txt — run an Ex command after the file loads

Visual mode

Commenting a block out

1. Press Esc
2. Press Ctrl-v to start visual-block mode
3. Select the lines
4. Press I
5. Type the comment character
6. Press Esc — the character is inserted at the start of every selected line

Commenting a block back in

1. Press Esc
2. Press Ctrl-v
3. Select the comment characters
4. Press x
5. Press Esc

Selecting and deleting a range of lines

1. Go to the first line
2. Press V
3. Move down to the last line
4. Press d

Reference

• Vim help — motion.txt
• Vim help — insert.txt
• Vim help — change.txt