Cheatsheet of Vim shortcuts

This is a cheatsheet of the commands I most frequently use for Vim. For a beginner’s guide to Vim, refer to my post Starting Vim.

Necessary commands

• Going into the Insert mode:
  • i starting before the current cursor position
  • a starting after the current cursor position
  • o adds a new blank line after the current cursor position and goes into the insert mode
• u undo last edit
• ctrl + r redo
• Exiting vim:
  • :w write file
  • :q quit, assuming you haven’t made any changes in the file
  • :x or :wq write file, then quit

Finding things

• f + pattern goes to the next instance of pattern in that line
• /pattern searches forward from the current cursor position for the text matching pattern. Press /, type the search term (pattern), and press Enter.
  • To search for the word “example”: first, ensure you are in Normal mode by pressing esc. Then type /example and press Enter.
  • To navigate search results, n moves to the next occurrence of the search pattern.
  • N moves to the previous occurrence of the search pattern.
• ?pattern searches backward from the current cursor position for the text matching pattern. Press ?, type the search term (pattern), and press Enter.
  • To search backward for the word “example”, you would type ?example in Normal mode and press Enter.

Moving around the line

• ^ or 0 goes to the beginning of the line
• $ goes to the end of the line
• gg goes to the beginning of the line

Moving around the file

• :0 goes to line zero
• :135 goes to line 135
• :+5 goes 5 lines forward
• :-5 goes 5 lines backward
• G goes to the last line of the file

Text editing

• dd delete current line
• d$ or D deletes from current cursor position to the end of the line