What is Vim?

Vim is a free, open-source, lightweight, and highly customizable text editor for code and plain text. It's fast and efficient because it's designed for keyboard-driven editing, so you can rarely need a mouse. It's an improved version of the classic Unix editor vi. Vim runs on almost every platform, including Linux, macOS, and Windows.

I've used Vim daily at work for about five years. In my experience, it has a steep learning curve and can intimidating at first, especially for beginners or occasional users. This guides rounds up the most useful shortcusts, organized by category and illustraded with examples, to help you get productive quickly.

Cursor Movement (Words, Symbols, syntax tokens)

Words and Symbol

w / b - next / previous word
e / ge - next / previous word end
W / B / E - like above but BIG words (treat punctuation as part of a word)
h - Move the cursor left
l - Move the cursor right
j - Moves the cursor down
k - Move the cursor up
gj - Move cursor down (for mult-iline text)
gk - Move curson up (for multi-line text)

Note

3w jumbs three word ahead.
5j jumbs down by line five.

Line Navigation

0 - start of the line
^ - first non-blank
$ - end of the line
g_ - last non-blank

Find with a line (single character)

f{char} / F{char} - jumps onto the next {char} to the right on this line
t{char} / T{char} - jumbs before next/prev {char}
; / , - repeat forward or backward

Note

Type f, → cursor lands on the comma after foo.
Type t, → cursor lands before that comma.
After f,, press ; to jump to the next comma.
Press , to go back to the prev comma.
Go left, from anywhere on the line, F= lands on previous =; T= lands just after it.
To replace foo, bar, baz; - /\w\+ Enter cgnHello<Esc> then n .

By sentences and paragraph

) / ( - next / prev sentences
} / { - next / prev paragraph

By Screen and scrolling

H/M/L - move cursor to screen High / Medium / Low
zz / zt / zb - center / top / bottom current line
ctrl+d / ctrl+u - half page down/up
ctrl+f / ctrl+b - page down / up
ctrl+e / ctrl+y - scroll down / up one line

File Navigation

gg - top of the file
G - bottom of the file
{count}G / :{count} - go to line number eg, 123G

Editing and Inserting

i - insert before cursor
a - insert after cursor
I - insert at start of line (first non-blank)
A - insert at end of line
o - new line below, start insert
O - new line above, start insert
Esc - go back to Normal mode

Cursor anywhere on the line - A; <Esc> - adds ; at the end

Delete / Change

x - delete char under cursor
dw - delete to start of next word
d$ - delete to end of line
dd - delete whole line

Change

cw - change word from cursor
caw - change a word (word + space)
C / c$ - change to end of line
cc - change whole line

Copy (yank) / paste

yy - yank line
2yy - copy two lines
yiw - yank (copy) word under the cursor (without space)
yw / yaw - yank to end of word (word + space)
y$ (inline) / Y - yank (copy) to end of line
p - paste after cursor / below line
P - paste before cursor / above line

Undo / Redo

u - undo
ctrl + r - redo

Dot repeat (very important)

. - repeats the last change (anything that modified text).

Visual mode

v - character-wise selection
V - line-wise selection
ctrl + v - block / column selection

v - start selection
vww - move 2 words forward

Note

Common action on selection

d - delete
y - yank
c - change (delete + insert)
~ - toggle case
gU / gu - upper / lower

Line wise (V)

V - select current line
Vjj - select current + 2 lines below

Then

> / < - indent / outdent

Example: Vjj< / Vjj >

Visual Block

Suppose you have foo = 1; bar = 2; baz = 3;

Put cursor on = of the first line
Press ctrl+vjj, column block over three lines.
Type I then add a spcae. e.g., I, then <Esc>.

Search and Replace

Basic searching

/word + Enter - search forward
?word + Enter - search backward
n - next match
N - previous match
* - search word under cursor (forward, whole word)
# - same as * but backward

Substitue

:s/old/new/ - substitue on current line
:s/old/new/g - substitue globally (all matches on line)
:%s/old/new/g (all matches) - substitue (s) in the whole (%) file

Tip

With confirmation

Type - :%s/old/new/gc

Then:

y - yes
n - no
a - all
q - quit

using regex

:%s/\vfoo\d+/bar/g

\d+ = one ore more digits
Replace foo123 to bar

Text Objects (the real power)

Pattern to remember: operator + text object - daw, ci" vi(, etc.

i - inner (inside, no surrounding spaces / brackets)
a - around (includes surrounding spaces / brackets)

Use them with:

d (delete), c (change), y (yank), v (visual select), gU / gu (upper/lower), etc

Word text objects: iw / aw

foo bar baz
    ^

Cursor on b:

diw - delete bar
daw - delete bar and following space
ciw - chage bar (with type new word)
viw - visually select bar

Sentence and paragraph: is / as, ip / ap

This is a sentence. Here is another one.
 
This is a new paragraph.

Cursor inside the first sentence:

dis - delete inner sentence
das - delete sentence + trailing space/punctuation
dip - delete inner paragraph
vip - visually select paragraph content

Quotes i" / a" etc

const msg = "Hello world!";
               ^

Cursor on Hello:

ci - change inside "...":
- deletes Hello world!
- puts you in insert mode to type new text
vi" - select Hello world!
da" - delete "Hellow world!" including Quotes

Works for ', " ```:

i', a', i", a", i``, a``

Paranthese / brackets / brackets

foo(bar, baz + qux)
      ^

Cursor somewhere inside (...):

ci( - change inside parantheses
di( - delete inside parantheses
va( - select (bar, baz + qux) include ( and )
vi( - select bar, baz + qux only

Tip

Same pattern for { / }, [ / ], < / >

Tags: it / at (HTML / XML) For HTML/XML and many setups:

<div class="box">
  <span>Hello</span>
</div>

Cursor inside span:

vit - select inside <span>...</span>
dat - delete whole tag pair and content
cit - change inside tag content

Note

If this doesn't work, you may need :set matchpairs+=<:> or a plugin, but many Vim configs support t by default.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope it helps you become faster and more confident with Vim - happy hacking!