Paul Gorman's Vim Cheatsheet

Insert Mode

ESC

Exit insert mode

Ctrl-[

Exit insert mode

i, a

Insert before, after cursor

I, A

Insert start, end of line

gI

Insert start of line, even before whitespace

o, O

Insert new line below, above

gi

Insert at last insert point

C

Change to end of line

S

Substitute line

s

Substitute character

Ctrl-o cmd

Run Normal cmd, resume Insert

Ctrl-n, Ctrl-p

Complete word

Ctrl-x-l

Complete line

Ctrl-d

Deindent

Ctrl-t

Increase indent

Ctrl-r-x

Paste register x contents

Normal Mode

Construct commands like:

["register][operator][count][motion]

Operators

d

Delete/cut

dd

Delete current line

D

Delete to end of line

y

Yank/copy

yy

Yank current line

p, P

Paste before, after cursor

c

Change

u

Undo

Ctrl-r

Redo

r

Replace character

.

Repeat last operation

J

Join with next line

gJ

Join without spaces

U

Undo all changes to line

R

Type over

>>, <<

Indent, deindent

==

Autoindent

~

Change case

ZZ

Save and close

ZQ

Close without saving

mx

Set mark x (a-z)

mX

Set GLOBAL mark X (A-Z)

Motions

h, j, k, l

Char left, down, up, right

0, gm, $

Start, midule, end of line

^

First non-white character of line

b, w

Word left, right

B, W

Whitespaced word left, right

/, ?

Search forward, back (e.g. y/foo)

ge, e

Word end left, right

gE, E

Whitespaced word end left, right

fx, Fx

Next, previous character x

; ,

Repeat last tx or Tx; comma: opposite direction

H, M, L

Top, midule, bottom of screen

Ctrl-f, Ctrl-b

Next, previous screen

Ctrl-d, Ctrl-u

Next, previous half-screen

gg, G

Start, end of file

g;, g,

Previous, next change

``

Last jump

Ctrl-o, Ctrl-i

Older, newer jump

[ENTER]

First non-white char of next line

%

Matching brace

{, }

Next, previous empty line

(, )

Next, previous sentence

nG

Line number n

n|

Column n

]s, [s

Next, last misspelled

x, X

Delete forward, back

*, #

Next, last word under cursor

n, N

Next, previous search result

`x

Jump to mark x

Registers

"a-z

Registers a-z

"0-9

Delete registers 0-9

qx

Record to x

q

Stop recording

@x

Execute x

@@

Repeat last macro

:reg

Show register contents

Ctrl-r-x

Paste x (Insert mode)

Text Objects

daw

Delete around word

cis

Change in sentence

dap

Delete around paragraph

yi"

Yank in quotes

ci{

Change in brackets

cit

Change in tags (HTML)

vib

Visual in block

:h text-objects

Command Mode

:marks

List marks

:ls (or :buffers)

List buffers

:changes

Show changes

:map

Show custom key mappings

:reg

Show register contents

:history

Show command history

:jumps

Show jump list

:10,20 d

Delete line 10 to 20

:'x,'y d

Delete mark x to y

:'<,'>w new.txt

Write selection to new file

/foo

Search foo forward

?foo

Search foo backward

:%s/foo\(\d\+\)/bar\1/gic

Replace all, ignore case, confirm each. Note backreference and escaped parens.

:s/foo/bar/gI

Replace all on current line, mind case

:s/\%Vfoo/bar/g

Match only within visual selection with \%V

&

Repeat last :s

:'x,'y s/foo/bar/g

Replace between marks x and y

:99

Go to line 99

File Commands

:e file

Open file

:enew

New file

:e .

Explore dir

:e sftp://me@example.com/myfile

Open sftp

:e!

Revert to saved

:w file

Save file

:wq

Save, close

:q!

Close, don't save

Options

:set number

Show line numbers

:set rnu

Show relative line numbers

:set paste

Autoindent off

:set hlsearch

Highlight matches

:set syntax=perl

Set syntax

:set noopt

Turn off opt

:set opt?

Show value of opt

:help options

:set

Show current options

Ranges

:help ranges

:5,10d

delete lines 5–10

:*d

delete last VISUAL selection

:.,.+10

delete current and next 10 lines

:/foo/+1d

delete line after next line containing foo

:.,'td

delete current line to mark t

Visual Mode

v

Enter visual mode

V

Enter line-wise visual mode

Ctrl-v

Visual block-wise mode

I, A

Prepend, append to block selection

<, >

Shift block selection (e.g. columns)

ggVG

Select all

=

Auto format selected

gv

Re-select visual area

vip

Select paragraph

Miscellaneous

z=

suggest spelling

zg, zug

Add to dict, undo add

Ctrl-a

Increment number under cursor

Ctrl-x

Decrement number under cursor

ci[)"}]

Delete inside ()/"/{} and insert

:[range]w !{cmd}

Execute cmd with range as stdin, like :w !sbcl or :'<,'>w !python

g Ctrl-g

Word count

g?

Rot 13

:ce 80

Center line columns

:r !date

Insert external command output (e.g. date)

:%! filter

Filter whole file

:| filter

Same as above

:'<,'>! filter

Filter visual selection

:'<,'>! sort

Example of above

:ab lw LongWord

Abbreviate LongWord

:una lw

Unset abbreviation

:ascii

Show ASCII value of char under cursor

:%s/pattern//gn

Count matches

:so ~/.vimrc

Reload .vimrc

:redraw! or Ctrl-l

Clean up the screen

:retab

Apply current tabstop settings

Pipe to vim like:
$ grep 'foo*bar' file.txt | vim -

Buffers and Windows

:bn, :bp

Next, prev buffer

:bd

Close buffer

:sp, :vsp [file]

Split view horizontal, vertical

Ctrl-w Ctrl-w

Move cursor viewport

Ctrl-w q

Close viewport

:on[ly]

Close all windows except this one

Ctrl-w [-+=_]

Resize viewport

:bufdo %s/foo/bar

Do to all buffers

zz, zt, zb

View line center, top, bottom

Folding

:set foldmethod=manual

or syntax, indent, etc.

:[range]fold

Create fold on range or selection

zf[move]

Create fold

zo

Open fold

zc

Close fold

zd

Delete this fold

zE

Delete all folds

:help folding

Help

:help

:h help

:h quickref

Quick reference

:h topic

Help on topic

Ctrl-]

Follow help link

Ctrl-t

Back to previous

Command-Line Window

q:

Edit command-mode history

q/

Edit search strings

:h command-line

Ctrl-f

Edit from command mode

Ctrl-c

Abort edit

Ex Mode (g & norm)

:[range]g[lobal]/pattern/[command]

Run the Ex command on all lines in [range] matching pattern

:[9,20]g/^/d A

Delete lines 9–20.

:g/foobar/y A

Yank all lines matching foobar into copy buffer

:g/^Foo/norm 0xxxBar

norm runs commands as if you typed them

:v/pattern/[command]

Like :g but finds NON-matching lines

:%norm @x

Run macro @x on all lines

:5,10norm @x

Run macro @x on lines 5-10

Type ctrl-v ESC to insert an escape keystroke in the norm argument.

OS copy/paste buffers

* is the X11 primary/selection buffer (middle-click/shift-insert). + is the clipboard/cut buffer (ctrl-c/ctrl-v).

"*p
"+y
"*dd
:%y +

Under Windows, the * and + registers are equivalent.

Format Options

Format to 80 columns (see :help formatoptions):
:set textwidth=80
ggVG
gq{motion} like gqap to format around paragraph