VIM Cheatsheet

Motion, keyboard commands and shortcuts for VI Improved

• Legend
• Motion / Normal mode
• Insert mode
• Changes
• Yank/Put or Copy/Paste
• Visual/Visual Block Mode
• Commands
• Files
• Windows
• Tabs
• coc.nvim
• Denite
• Help
• Search/Replace
• Find Files

Legend

Command	Keyboard Character
command	⌘
control	⌃
alt	⎇
delete	⌫
option	⌥
shift	⇧
caps lock	⇪
tab	⇥
arrow up	↑
arrow down	↓
arrow left	←
arrow right	→
escape	⎋ or ␛
return/enter	⏎ or ⌤
home	↖
end	↘
page up	⇞
page down	⇟

Motion - Normal Mode

• j - Down
• k - Up
• h - Left
• l - Right
• 0, ⇧6 - Line beginning
• $ - Line ending
• e, w - Forward (Small word)
• ⇧e, ⇧w - Forward (big word forward (whitespace only))
• b - Backwards (small word)
• ⇧b - Backwards (big word)
• f<char> - Jump to first occurrence of <char>
• ; - Repeat previous jump
• ⇧f<char> - Jump to previous first occurrence of <char>
• t<char> - Jump to position before first occurrence of <char>
• ⇧t<char> - Jump to position before first previous occurrence of <char> in the direction youre searching
• <n> <motion> - Prefix motion command with a number n to have it jump that n away. e.g. 4li jumps to the 4th ‘i’ forward.
• ⌃f - Forward (page)
• ⌃b - Backward (page)
• ⌃u - Upward (half page)
• ⌃d - Downward (half page)
• ⇧h - Head (of current page)
• ⇧m - Middle (of current page)
• ⇧l - Lowest (of current page)
• gg - Go to top of file
• ⇧gg - Go to bottom of file
• <n>⇧g - Go to line n
• ][ - Jump to next matching brace
• [] - Jump to previous matching brace
• % - Jump between matching braces
• za - Toggle code fold
• zo - Open code fold
• zc - Close code fold
• zr - Open one layer of code folds
• z⇧r - Open all code folks

Insert Mode

These commands are entered while in Normal or visual mode.

• i - Insert at cursor
• ⇧i - Insert at line beginning
• a - Append after cursor
• ea - Append after word at cursor
• ⇧a - Append at end of line
• o - Insert line below cursor
• ⇧o - Insert line above cursor
• x - Delete character under cursor
• ⇧x - Delete character before cursor
• dd - Delete line at cursor position
• d <motion> - Delete amount by motion command e.g. dw delete small word
• c <motion> - Change by motion e.g. cw overwrite small word
• r - Replace character at cursor
• ⇧r - Replace overwriting text
• ^v u <codepoint> - Insert unicode character at codepoint
• ␛ - Exit insert mode

Changes

• ⇧j - Join line with line below
• c(f|t)<char> - Change characters (inclusive with f or exclusive with t) to char

Yank/Put or Copy/Paste

• y - Yank cursor or selection into default buffer
• ”<r>y - Yank cursor or selection into register a (a: can be any letter, e.g. a, b, c)
• yw - Yank word into buffer
• yy - Yank line into buffer
• <n>yy- Yank n lines into buffer
• y <motion> - Yank into buffer by motion
• x - Yank character at cursor
• p - Put default buffer after cursor
• ⇧p - Put buffer before cursor
• ”<r>p - Put value from register a before cursor (a: can be any letter, e.g. a, b, c)

Visual / Visual Block Mode

Visual mode is used for marking text.

• v - Visual mode
• V - Visual line-based mode
• ⌃v - Visual block mode
• gv - Re-select previous Visual block buffer
• o - Jump to other end of block
• ⇧o - Jump to other corner of block
• vaw - Visual select a word (includes whitespace)
• viw - Vissual select inner word (no whitespace)
• vap - Visual select a paragraph
• vip - Visual select inner paragraph
• va[ - Visual select [] block and contents
• vi[ - Visual select [] contents only
• va{ - Visual select block and contents
• vi{ - Visual select contents only
• va( - Visual select parens block and contents
• vi( - Visual select parens contents only
• va< - Visual select <> block and contents
• vi< - Visual select <> contents only
• va” - Visual select all double quote and contents
• vi” - Visual select inner quoted contents
• vit - Visual select inner XML/HTML tag contents
• vat - Visual select all XML/HTML tag contents
• v<motion> - Visually mark text by motion command
• ␛ - Exit visual mode

The following commands can be used while text is marked.

• c - Delete and begin inserting (To replace currently marked text)
• d - Delete
• y - Yank
• > - Indent right
• < - Indent left

Commands

• . - Repeat previous command
• u - Undo previous command
• ⇧u - Undo all changes to current line
• ⌃r - Redo
• :q - Quit
• :q! - Quit (without saving changes)

Files

• :e <path> - OpEn file into buffer
• :w - Write buffer to file
• :ls - List open buffers
• :(b|buf|buffer) <n> - Switch to buff n
• :(bd|bdelete) <n> - Delete buffer n (close file)
• :bp - Switch to previous buffer
• :bn - Switch to next buffer

Windows

• ⌃wo - make current window the Only window
• :(sp|spl|split) <path> - SPlit window horizontally, optionally loading file at path
• :vsp <path> - Vertically SPlit window, optionally loading file at path
• ⌃ws - Window split (horizontally)
• ⌃wv - Window split (vertically)
• ⌃wx - Windows eXchange, swap their position
• ⌃wk - Move window up
• ⌃wj - Move window down
• ⌃wh - Move window left
• ⌃wl - Move window right
• ⌃wp - Move window previous
• ⌃wc - Window close
• ⌃w= - Balance windows
• ⌃w+ - Grow horizontal window split by 1
• ⌃w- - Shrink horizontal window split by 1
• ⌃w> - Grow vertical window split by 1
• ⌃w< - Shrink vertical window split by 1
• :(resize|res) (+|-)<n> - Horizontal resize to n or increase/decrease by n
• :vertical resize (+|-)<n> - Vertical resize to n or increase/decrease by n

Tabs

• gt - GoTo next tab
• g⇧t - Goto previous tab
• <n>gt - Goto tab n
• :tabedit <file> - Edit specified file in a new tab
• :tabfind <file> - Open a new tab with filename given
• :tabclose - Close tab
• :tabclose <n> - Close tab n
• :tabonly - Close all other tabs

coc.nvim

• ,dj Open implementation at cursor (coc-implementation)
• ,dd Open symbol definition at cursor (coc-definition)
• ,dr Open panel of symbol references at cursor (coc-references)

Denite

• ; - fuzzy-search buffers for a string
• ,t - fuzzy-search current directory for string
• ,j - fuzzy-search current directory for string at cursor

Help

• :h - Open Help
• ⌃] - Activate link at cursor
• ⌃T - Back

Search / Replace

• /<pattern> - Search forward for pattern
• ?<pattern> - Search backward for pattern
• n - Jump to next match in searching direction
• ⇧n - Jump to next match in opposite direction
• :<range>s/<foo>/<bar>/[g,i,I,c] - Replace old with new. range is either empty, % for whole file, or a line number. g flag replaces all occurrances on the line. i ignores case. I doesn’t ignore case. c asks for confirmation.
• * <n|⇧n> - Search forward for word at cursor, n jumps to Next result, N jumps to previous
• # <n|⇧n> - Search backward for word at cursor, n jumps to Next result, N jumps to previous

Find Files

For finding patterns in files. Use :vimgrep if unsure if the grep command-line utility is available, but :grep is generally faster. All searches fill a buffer that is accessible by the :cw command.

• :vimgrep /<pattern>/[g][j] <path/*/> - Search for regex pattern located in path. The g option specifies that all matches for a search will be returned instead of just one per line, and the j option specifies that Vim will not jump to the first match automatically.
• :grep <pattern> <path> - Search for regex pattern located in path.