Vim Cheatsheet

A cheatsheet for our most beloved text editor Vim.

Ratan Kulshreshtha published on May 28, 2020

6 min, 1192 words

Tags: vim

This cheatsheet is summarized from personal experience and other online tutorials. It should not be considered as an official advice.

Global

:help keyword - open help for keyword
:saveas file - save file as
:close - close current pane
K - open man page for word under the cursor

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)
% - move to matching character (default supported pairs: '()', '{}', '[]' - use :h matchpairs in vim for more info)
0 - jump to the start of the line
^ - jump to the first non-blank character of the line
$ - jump to the end of the line
g_ - jump to the last non-blank character 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
fx - jump to next occurrence of character x
tx - jump to before next occurrence of character x
Fx - jump to previous occurence of character x
Tx- jump to after previous occurence of character x
; - repeat previous f, t, F or T movement
, - repeat previous f, t, F or T movement, backwards
} - 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
Ctrl + d - move forward 1/2 a screen
Ctrl + u - move back 1/2 a 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
gwip - reflow paragraph
cc - change (replace) entire line
C - change (replace) to the end of the line
c$ - change (replace) to the end of the line
ciw - change (replace) entire word
cw - change (replace) to the end of the word
s - delete character and substitute text
S - delete line and substitute text (same as cc)
xp - transpose two letters (delete and paste)
u - undo
Ctrl + r - redo
. - repeat last command

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

Search and replace

/pattern - search for pattern
?pattern - search backward for pattern
\vpattern - 'very magic' pattern: non-alphanumeric characters are interpreted as special regex symbols (no escaping needed)
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

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
Ctrl + v - start visual block mode
O - move to other corner of block
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

> - shift text right
< - shift text left
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

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)

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