Commonly used Vim commands

Basics commands

Advanced commands

Essentials

Cursor movement (Normal/Visual Mode)

• h j k l - Arrow keys
• w / b - Next/previous word
• W / B - Next/previous word (space seperated)
• e / ge - Next/previous end of word
• 0 / $ - Start/End of line
• ^ - First non-blank character of line (same as 0w)

Editing text

• i / a - Start insert mode at/after cursor
• I / A - Start insert mode at the beginning/end of the line
• o / O - Add blank line below/above current line
• Esc or Ctrl+[ - Exit insert mode
• d - Delete
• dd - Delete line
• c - Delete, then start insert mode
• cc - Delete line, then start insert mode

Operators

• Operators also work in Visual Mode
• d - Deletes from the cursor to the movement location
• c - Deletes from the cursor to the movement location, then starts insert mode
• y - Copy from the cursor to the movement location
• > - Indent one level
• < - Unindent one level
• You can also combine operators with motions. Ex: d$ deletes from the cursor to the end of the line.

Marking text (visual mode)

• v - Start visual mode
• V - Start linewise visual mode
• Ctrl+v - Start visual block mode
• Esc or Ctrl+[ - Exit visual mode

Clipboard

• yy - Yank (copy) a line
• p - Paste after cursor
• P - Paste before cursor
• dd - Delete (cut) a line
• x - Delete (cut) current character
• X - Delete (cut) previous character
• d / c - By default, these copy the deleted text

Exiting

• :w - Write (save) the file, but don’t quit
• :wq - Write (save) and quit
• :q - Quit (fails if anything has changed)
• :q! - Quit and throw away changes

Search/Replace

• /pattern - Search for pattern
• ?pattern - Search backward for pattern
• n - Repeat search in same direction
• N - Repeat search in opposite direction
• :%s/old/new/g - Replace all old with new throughout file (gn is better though)
• :%s/old/new/gc - Replace all old with new throughout file with confirmations

General

• u - Undo
• Ctrl+r - Redo

Advanced

Cursor movement

• Ctrl+d - Move down half a page
• Ctrl+u - Move up half a page
• } - Go forward by paragraph (the next blank line)
• { - Go backward by paragraph (the next blank line)
• gg - Go to the top of the page
• G- Go the bottom of the page
• : [num] [enter] - Go to that line in the document
• ctrl+e / ctrl+y - Scroll down/up one line

Character search

• f [char] - Move forward to the given char
• F [char] - Move backward to the given char
• t [char] - Move forward to before the given char
• T [char] - Move backward to before the given char
• ; / , - Repeat search forwards/backwards

Editing text

• J - Join line below to the current one
• r [char] - Replace a single character with the specified char (does not use Insert mode)

Visual mode

• O - Move to other corner of block
• o - Move to other end of marked area

File Tabs

• :e filename - Edit a file
• :tabe - Make a new tab
• gt - Go to the next tab
• gT - Go to the previous tab
• :vsp - Vertically split windows
• ctrl+ws - Split windows horizontally
• ctrl+wv- Split windows vertically
• ctrl+ww- Switch between windows
• ctrl+wq- Quit a window

Marks

• Marks allow you to jump to designated points in your code.
• m{a-z} - Set mark {a-z} at cursor position
• A capital mark {A-Z} sets a global mark and will work between files
• '{a-z} - Move the cursor to the start of the line where the mark was set
• '' - Go back to the previous jump location

Text Objects

• Say you have def (arg1, arg2, arg3), where your cursor is somewhere in the middle of the parenthesis.
• di( deletes everything between the parenthesis. That says “change everything inside the nearest parenthesis”. Without text objects, you would need to do T(dt).
• Learn more

General

• . - Repeat last command
• Ctrl+r + 0 in insert mode inserts the last yanked text (or in command mode)
• gv - reselect (select last selected block of text, from visual mode)
• % - jumps between matching () or {}

Reference

• Vim cheatsheet