Master Vim: Essential Commands, Modes, and Customizations Explained

1. Vim History

Vim (Vi IMproved) evolved from the original vi editor; it is a modal text editor used for creating and viewing plain‑text files. Text files contain only character data without formatting, typically in formats such as ASCII, MIME, or .txt. Common text editors include line editors like sed and full‑screen editors like nano , vi , and vim .

2. Basic Operations

Modes

Normal (command) mode

Insert mode

Ex (last‑line) mode

Opening Files

# vim [OPTION]... FILE...

+#

– open file and place cursor at line # +/PATTERN – open file and jump to first line matching PATTERN

Mode Switching

i

– insert before cursor a – append after cursor o – open a new line below cursor I – insert at start of line A – insert at end of line O – open a new line above cursor ESC – return to normal mode : – enter Ex mode

Exiting and Saving

:q

– quit :! – force quit without saving :wq or :x – write and quit :w /PATH/TO/SOMEWHERE – write current buffer to another file ZZ – write and quit

Cursor Movement

Characterwise: h left, l right, k up, j down

Wordwise: w next word start, e next word end, b previous word start

Line start/end: ^ first non‑blank, 0 absolute start, $ end

Line navigation: #G go to line #, G last line, 1G or gg first line

Sentence: ) next, ( previous

Paragraph: } next, { previous

Editing Commands

Delete: x delete character, #x delete # characters, dd delete line, #dd delete # lines

Replace: r replace single character

Copy (yank): y, yy copy line, #yy copy # lines

Paste: p paste after cursor, P paste before cursor

Change: c change text, cc change whole line

3. Other Editing Operations

Visual Mode

v

– characterwise visual selection V – linewise visual selection

Undo/Redo

u

– undo #u – undo # times

Ctrl+r – redo . – repeat last change

4. Screen Operations

Ctrl+f

– page forward Ctrl+b – page backward Ctrl+d – half‑page forward Ctrl+u – half‑page backward vimtutor – start built‑in tutorial

5. Ex Mode Features

Address ranges: : start , end (e.g., 1,5)

Search: /PATTERN forward, ?PATTERN backward, n / N repeat

Substitute: s/old/new/flags where flags include i (ignore case) and g (global)

6. File Management

Multiple Files

:next

, :prev, :first, :last – switch buffers :wall – write all :qall – quit all

Window Splits

vim -o FILE1 FILE2

– horizontal split vim -O FILE1 FILE2 – vertical split

Switch windows: Ctrl+w + Arrow

Split current window: Ctrl+w s (horizontal), Ctrl+w v (vertical)

Configuration

Global config: /etc/vimrc User config: ~/.vimrc Set options in Ex mode, e.g., set number (show line numbers), set noai (disable auto‑indent), set hlsearch (highlight search), syntax on (enable syntax highlighting), set ic (ignore case)