Essential Vim Commands Cheat Sheet: Editing, Navigation, Search & Replace

Common Editing Commands

i

, a, r: insert, append, or replace characters at the cursor. O, o: open a new empty line above or below the current line. cw, dw: change or delete the word under the cursor. x, d$, dd: delete a character, delete to end of line, or delete the whole line.

Cursor Movement

h

, j, k, l: move left, down, up, right. Ctrl+f, Ctrl+b: page down, page up. nG: jump to line number n. w, b: move forward or backward by a word. 0 and $: move to the beginning or end of the current line. H, M, L: move to the top, middle, or bottom of the screen.

Deletion

ndw

or ndW: delete n words starting at the cursor. do: delete to the beginning of the line. d$: delete to the end of the line.

n

dd

: delete n consecutive lines. x / X: delete the character after / before the cursor. %d or 1,$d: delete the entire file.

Search

/pattern

: search forward for pattern. ?pattern: search backward for pattern. n: repeat the last search in the same direction. N: repeat the last search in the opposite direction.

Replace

s/vivian/sky/

: replace the first occurrence of vivian on the current line with sky. s/vivian/sky/g: replace all occurrences on the current line. n,$s/vivian/sky/: replace the first occurrence from line n to the end of file. %s/vivian/sky/g: replace every occurrence in the whole file. s#vivian#sky#: use # as delimiter to avoid escaping slashes.

Copy & Paste

yy

: yank (copy) the current line. nyy: yank n lines starting from the current line.

Press v then move with arrow keys, then y to copy a visual selection. dd: cut (delete) the current line. p: paste below the cursor; P: paste above. n1,n2co n3: copy lines n1 ‑ n2 to after line n3. n1,n2m n3: move lines n1 ‑ n2 to after line n3.

Editor Options

set number

: show line numbers; set nonumber (or add !) to hide them. set all: list all option settings. set ignorecase: ignore case in searches. set list: display tabs and end‑of‑line markers. set warn: warn when switching files with unsaved changes. set nowrapscan: stop searching when the end of file is reached. set mesg: allow messages from other users via write.

Saving & Exiting

:wq

: write (save) and quit. :q!: quit without saving. :w: write changes. U: undo all recent changes on the current line. Ctrl+r: redo undone changes.