Quickest Guide to Getting Strated with Vim

Vim in essence has two modes - INSERT and NORMAL. You enter text in INSERT mode, everything else you do in NORMAL mode. When you open vim you land in the NORMAL mode; to get to INSERT mode type i, and vim is ready to insert right where you are, or o and vim will create a new line and put the cursor at the beginning of the new line for insertion. To escape out of insert mode type esc or Ctrl + C

Convetions

• If a key includes a + it means the two have to typed together, like CTRL + F
• If it doesn't then they have to be typed in sequence, like dd.

Moving around

#	Action	Key
1	Next word	w
2	End of next word	e
3	Previous word	b
4	End of the previous word	ge
5	Next sentence	)
6	Previous sentence	(
7	Next paragraph	}
8	EOF	G
9	BOF	g
10	Next page	Ctrl + F
11	Previous page	Ctrl + B
12	Specific line	line number
13	End of line	$
14	Beginning of line	0

Search

#	Action	Key
1	Foward	/
2	Next ocuurence	n
3	Backward	?
4	Next occurence of current word	*
5	Previous occuremnce of current word	#

Delete/Change

#	Action	Key
1	Delete word	dw
2	Delete line	dd
3	Delete sentence	d)
4	Change word	cw
5	Change sentence	cc
6	Undo	u

Copy & Paste

#	Action	Key
1	Copy word	yw
2	Paste word	P

Move between buffers

#	Action	Key
1	Open a new file in the same window	:new filename
2	Move between buffers	Ctrl+w w
3	Close a buffer	Ctrl + w c
4	Edit a file	:e filename
5	Open a directory	:e .
6	Open a file in a directory	Select the filename and Enter
7	Delete buffer	:bd
8	Next buffer	:bn
9	Previous buffer	:bp
10	Specific buffer	:b
11	All buffers	:ls