Essential Vim commands for efficient text editing

In this tutorial, I’ll cover the basic commands that you need to know to work in Vim efficiently. I recommend you to open a file with Vim/Neovim and try the command while reading it.

The 3 most used modes in Vim:

• Normal mode: Used for moving/editing text. When you press <ESC> in other modes, you’ll get back to Normal mode.
• Command-line mode: Used for executing commands (eg: save file, open help file).
• Insert mode: Used for inserting text.

You can learn more about each command with the Vim’s help file. Open it by typing :h {command name} and hit enter.

Normal Mode

To begin with, let’s learn how to move in Vim.

Up-down Motions

See more with :h up-down-motions.

k           go up
j           go down
-           go up and move to the first non-blank character
+ or <CR>   go down and move to the first non-blank character
gg          go to first line
G           go to last line

Left-right Motions

See more with :h left-right-motions.

h           go left
l           go right
0           go to the first character of the line
^			go to the first non-blank character of the line
$           go to the end of the line
f{char}		go to the occurrence of {char} to the right
F{char}		go to the occurrence of {char} to the left
t{char}		go till before the occurrence of {char} to the right
T{char}		go till after the occurrence of {char} to the left
;			repeat latest f, t, F or T
,			repeat latest f, t, F or T in opposite direction

Word Motions

See more with :h word-motions.

w			go one word forward
W			go one word forward, ignore symbol
e			go forward to the end of word
E			go forward to the end of word, ignore symbol
b			go one word backward
B			go one word backward, ignore symbol
ge			go backward to the end of word
gE			go backward to the end of word, ignore symbol

After being able to move in Vim, let’s learn how to editing text. The pattern of editing looks like this:

operator + motion or text-object

Operator

See more with :h operator.

d           delete
y           yank(copy) into register
(after delete or yank you can use `p` to paste)
c           change(delete and start insert)
~           swap case
=           format

Some examples of operator + motion:

cw          change a word
dt(         delete till the first occurrence of (
y5j         yank to 5 lines down

Exceptions:

dd          delete current line
D           delete until the end of the line
yy          yank current line
Y           yank until the end of the line
cc          change current line
C           change until the end of the line
==          format current line

Text Objects

See more with :h text-objects.

iw          inside word
aw          around word

ip          inside paragraph
ap          around paragraph

it          inside tag block (for HTML and XML)
at          around tag block (for HTML and XML)

i{          inside {}
a{          around {}
...(you can apply this to any pair block [] () <> '' "" ``)

Some examples of operator + text-object:

ci"         change inside ""
dap         delete around paragraph
=i{         format the code inside {}

Note: If the text-object is pair block, Vim will find the nearest one from the right of your cursor. This trick is very useful.

Example (^ points to the position of your cursor):

int main(void) {
  cout << "test";
^
  return 0;
}

You can use ci" to change the text inside "" pair although your cursor is at the beginning of the line.

Scrolling

See more with :h scrolling.

CTRL-U       scroll window half a screen upwards
CTRL-D       scroll window half a screen downwards
CTRL-B       scroll window a full screen upwards
CTRL-F       scroll window a full screen downwards

Inserting

See more with :h inserting.

i           insert text before the cursor
I           insert text before the first non-blank in the line
a           append text after the cursor
A           append text at the end of the line
o           begin a new line below the cursor and insert text
O           begin a new line above the cursor and insert text

Others

You can add number before command to execute it [count] times.

Examples: 5k will go up 5 lines

s           delete character and start insert (synonym for cl)
S           delete line and start insert (synonym of cc)
x           delete character under the cursor
X           delete character before the cursor
u           undo
CTRL-R      redo
.           repeat last change
ZQ          quit without checking for changes
ZZ          save current file and quit

Insert Mode

<ESC>       leave insert mode
i_CTRL-O    execute one command in Normal mode and then return to Insert mode

Command-line Mode

(<CR> means enter)

:w<CR>          save the current file
:q<CR>          quit
:q!<CR>         quit without checking for changes (same as ZQ)
:wq<CR>         save current file and quit (same as ZZ)
/{pattern}<CR>  search forward for the occurrence of {pattern}
?{pattern}<CR>  search backward for the occurrence of {pattern}
n			    repeat the latest `/` or `?`
N			    repeat the latest `/` or `?` in opposite direction

Final Words

Remember all these command takes some time. If you are already familiar with these commands, you can continue to read the Practical Vim command workflow to learn how to move/edit text in Vim efficiently.