CHEATSHEET/ VIM

Vim Cheat Sheet

Modes, motions, edits, search and replace, registers, splits, macros. The 100 commands you actually use.

MODES

Esc

Return to Normal mode (the home base)

Insert mode at cursor

Insert mode after cursor

Insert at start of line

Insert at end of line

New line below, enter Insert

New line above, enter Insert

Visual (character) mode

Visual Line mode

Ctrl+v

Visual Block mode (column selection)

Replace mode (overwrites)

Ex command mode (e.g. :w, :q)

SAVE & QUIT

Write (save)

:w <file>

Write to a different file

Quit (fails if unsaved changes)

:q!

Quit, discarding changes

:wq

Write and quit

Write (only if changed) and quit

Same as :x (Normal mode shortcut)

Same as :q! (Normal mode shortcut)

:wa

Write all open buffers

:qa

Quit all

CURSOR MOTION

h j k l

Left, down, up, right

Forward to next word start

Back to previous word start

Forward to word end

Start of line

First non-blank char on line

End of line

Top of file

Bottom of file

42G

Jump to line 42

:42

Same: jump to line 42

{ }

Previous/next paragraph (blank-line separated)

Jump to matching bracket / paren

Ctrl+u

Half page up

Ctrl+d

Half page down

Ctrl+f

Full page down (forward)

Ctrl+b

Full page up (back)

f<c>

Forward to next occurrence of char on line

F<c>

Backward to previous occurrence

t<c>

Forward UNTIL char (stops one before)

;

Repeat last f/F/t/T

EDITING

Delete char under cursor

Delete char before cursor (backspace)

Delete (cut) line

5dd

Delete 5 lines

Delete word

Delete to end of line (same as D)

Delete to start of line

Delete to end of file

Change (delete and enter Insert) line

Change word

Change to end of line

r<c>

Replace single char with c

Toggle case of current char

Yank (copy) line

Yank word

Yank to end of line

Paste after cursor

Paste before cursor

Undo

Ctrl+r

Redo

Repeat last change

Join current line with next

Indent line right

Indent line left

Auto-indent line

TEXT OBJECTS (COMBINE WITH D, C, Y, V)

Inner word (diw = delete word)

A word (with surrounding whitespace)

i" or i'

Inside quotes (ci" = change inside quotes)

i( or i)

Inside parentheses

i[ or i]

Inside brackets

i{ or i}

Inside braces

it / at

Inside / around HTML/XML tag

ip / ap

Inside / around paragraph

Pattern to internalize: {operator}{count}{motion}. d2w = delete 2 words. y3j = yank 3 lines down. c$ = change to end of line. Once this clicks, every other Vim trick gets cheap.

/pattern

Search forward

?pattern

Search backward

Next match

Previous match

Search forward for word under cursor

Search backward for word under cursor

:noh

Clear search highlights

:set hlsearch

Highlight search results

:set incsearch

Incremental (live) search

SEARCH & REPLACE

:s/foo/bar/

Replace first match on current line

:s/foo/bar/g

Replace all on current line

:%s/foo/bar/g

Replace all in file

:%s/foo/bar/gc

Replace all with confirmation

:%s/foo/bar/gi

Replace all, case-insensitive

:5,15s/foo/bar/g

Replace on lines 5-15

:'<,'>s/foo/bar/g

Replace in visual selection (auto-filled if selected first)

SPLITS & TABS

:split

Horizontal split

:vsplit

Vertical split

Ctrl+w h/j/k/l

Move between split panes

Ctrl+w =

Equal-size all panes

Ctrl+w q

Close current pane

Ctrl+w o

Close all but current pane

:tabnew

New tab

Next tab

Previous tab

BUFFERS (OPEN FILES)

:e file

Open file in current window

:ls

List open buffers

:bn

Next buffer

:bp

Previous buffer

:b 3

Switch to buffer 3 (use :ls to see numbers)

:bd

Close current buffer

REGISTERS

"ay

Yank into register a

"ap

Paste from register a

"+y

Yank into system clipboard (if compiled with +clipboard)

"+p

Paste from system clipboard

:reg

Show all register contents

"_d

Delete into the "black hole" (don't pollute paste register)

MARKS

Set mark a at cursor

Jump to line of mark a

Jump to exact position of mark a

Jump back to position before last jump

Jump to last edit position

:marks

Show all marks

MACROS

Start recording macro into register a

Stop recording

Replay macro a

Replay last macro

100@a

Replay macro 100 times (handy for batch transforms)

VISUAL MODE OPERATIONS

Delete selection

Yank selection

Change selection

Indent right

Indent left

u / U

Lowercase / Uppercase selection

Toggle case

Move to other end of selection

USEFUL SETTINGS (~/.VIMRC)

:set number

Show line numbers

:set relativenumber

Relative line numbers (great with motions)

:set tabstop=4

Tab width

:set expandtab

Use spaces instead of tabs

:set ignorecase

Case-insensitive search

:set smartcase

Case-sensitive when search has uppercase

:set clipboard=unnamedplus

Use system clipboard by default (Linux)

:syntax on

Syntax highlighting