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Vim Cheatsheet

Basic Vim motions to get you started.

Movement​

  • h j k l - Left, Down, Up, Right (recommended over the arrow keys)
  • w b - Go forward a word, go back a word
  • { } - Jump up and down whole code blocks
  • gg - Go to the top of the document
  • G - Go to the bottom of the document
  • 0 - Go to the beginning of the line
  • ^ - Go to the first non-whitespace character of the line
  • $ - Go to the end of the line

Editing​

  • yy - Copy a line
  • dd - Delete a line (similar to cut)
  • p - Paste what was yanked or deleted after the cursor
  • u - Undo
  • ctrl + r - Redo
  • x - Delete a character
  • r - Replace a character
  • d or y combined with any other movement options to delete or yank different selections like dw to delete a word or dj to delete the line and the line below it.
  • shift + d - Delete from the cursor to the end of the line
  • shift + y - Copy from the cursor to the end of the line
  • shift + p - Paste before the cursor
  • gg=G - Format your document

Visual Mode​

Used for highlighting and selecting text.

  • v - visual mode for text selection
  • shift + v - visual line mode, for selecting whole lines
  • y d - in visual mode to copy or cut selection
  • p - Paste over selection

Insert Mode​

  • i - Insert mode before the cursor
  • a - Insert mode after the cursor
  • shift + i - Insert mode at the beginning of the line
  • shift + a - Insert mode at the end of the line
  • o - Insert mode on a new line below the cursor
  • shift + o - Insert mode on a new line above the cursor
  • c - Same as d but also enters insert mode
  • cc - Delete a line and enter insert mode
  • shift + c - Delete from the cursor to the end of the line and enter insert mode
  • escape - exit insert mode

Exiting​

  • :q - Close a document
  • :wq - Save and exit a document
  • :q! - Close the document without saving
  • shift + zz - An alias for :wq to save and exit a document

If you want to dive deeper into Vim, this YouTuber, The Primeagen is a good place to start.