Vim tips

Cursor movement

• h - cursor left
• j - cursor down
• k - cursor up
• l - cursor right
• gj - next display line
• gk - previous display line
• H - top of screen
• L - bottom of screen
• M - middle of screen
• w - start of next word
• e - end of current word
• b - start of current word
• ge - end of previous word
• 0 - start of line
• ^ - first non-blank character
• $ - end of line
• g_ - last non-blank character
• gg - first line
• G - last line

Search & replace

• fx - next occurence of 'x'
• tx - before next occurence of 'x'
• Fx - previous occurence of 'x'
• Tx - after previous occurence of 'x'
• ; - repeat previous f/t/F/T movement
• , - backwards repeat previous f/t/F/T movement
• /pattern - search for pattern
• ?pattern - backward search for pattern
• * / # - next/previous occurrence of current word
• n - repeat search in same direction
• N - repeat search in opposite direction
• :%s/old/new/g - replace throughout file
• :1,$s/old/new/gc - replace throughout file with confirmation
• :noh - remove search highlighting

Editing

• . - repeat last change
• u - undo
• <C-r> - redo
• x - delete current character
• r - replace current character
• s - substitute current character
• yy - yank current line
• p - paste after cursor
• P - paste before cursor
• dd - delete current line
• D - delete to end of line
• daw - delete entire word
• d) - delete to end of sentence
• da} - delete current paragraph
• ciw - change entire word
• J - join lines with space
• gJ - joint lines with unchanged spaces
• ~ - change case
• guw - lowercase to end of word
• gUaw - uppercase entire word

Inserting

• i - insert before cursor
• I - insert at start of line
• a - append after cursor
• A - append at end of line
• o - open below current line
• O - open above current line
• Esc - exit insert mode
• <C-o> - insert normal mode

Autocompletion

Within insert mode, initialize matches from:

• <C-n> - generic keywords
• <C-x><C-n> - current file
• <C-x><C-i> - current and included files
• <C-x><C-k> - dictionary

then select from popup with:

• <C-y> - accept and exit
• <C-e> - revert and exit
• <C-n> - search forwards and insert
• <C-p> - search backwards and insert

Files & processes

• :w - write current file
• :wq / ZZ - write and quit window
• :q! - quit ignoring changes
• :wqa - write and quit all tabs
• !{motion}sort - pass lines through 'sort'
• :%!sort - pass buffer through 'sort'
• :r {file} - read file after current line
• :r !{cmd} - read `cmd` after current line

Registers & macros

• qa{changes}q...@a - record & replay changes
• "bdd - cut line into register 'b'
• "bp - paste from register 'b'
• "+ - system clipboard
• "* - X11 selection

Windows

• <C-w>s - split horizontally
• <C-w>v - split vertically
• <C-w>c - close current window
• <C-w>o - keep only current window
• <C-w>+ - increase window height
• <C-w>< - decrease window width
• <C-w>= - equalize window sizes
• <C-w>r - rotate down