vim and Linux: the cheat sheet

Daily used commands of vim

Compressing

tar -czvf archive.tar.gz my_directory

Existing

:q :q! :w :wq

Cursor movement

Command	Description
h j k l	Arrow keys
Ctrl+f/b	Forward/backward
Ctrl+d/u	Move down/up half page
G	Go to the bottom of the page
gg	Go to the top of the page
{ / }	Forward/Backward one paragraph
Ctrl+e/y	Scroll down/up one line
0	Start of line
^	Start of line after white space
$	End of line
%	Jump between matching () or {}

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Editting

u : Undo
ctrl+r : Redo
i/a : Start insert mode at/after cursor
I/A : Start insert mode at the beginning/end of the line

Visual mode (slecting text)

v
V
ctrl+v

Clipboard

y : copy the selcted characters in the visual mode
p : paste after cursor

Deletion

d x

Search/Replace

:%s/<old>/<new>/g : replace all with throughout file
:%s/<old>/<new>/gc : replace all with throughout file with confirmation

/<text> search for
?<text> search for backward

To comment out blocks in vim:

• press Esc (to leave editing or other mode)
• hit ctrl+v (visual block mode)
• use the j/k "arrow keys" to select lines you want (it won't highlight everything - it's OK!)
• Shift+i (capital I)
• insert the text you want, e.g. %
• press EscEsc

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No need to go beyond the commands above.