Cursor movement (Normal/Visual Mode)

• h j k l – Arrow keys
• w / b – Next/previous word
• W / B – Next/previous word (space seperated)
• e / ge – Next/previous end of word
• 0 / $ – Start/End of line
• ^ – First non-blank character of line (same as 0w)

Editing text

• i / a – Start insert mode at/after cursor
• I / A – Start insert mode at the beginning/end of the line
• o / O – Add blank line below/above current line
• Esc or Ctrl+[ – Exit insert mode
• d – Delete
• dd – Delete line
• c – Delete, then start insert mode
• cc – Delete line, then start insert mode

Operators

• Operators also work in Visual Mode
• d – Deletes from the cursor to the movement location
• c – Deletes from the cursor to the movement location, then starts insert mode
• y – Copy from the cursor to the movement location
• > – Indent one level
• < – Unindent one level
• You can also combine operators with motions. Ex: d$ deletes from the cursor to the end of the line.

Marking text (visual mode)

• v – Start visual mode
• V – Start linewise visual mode
• Ctrl+v – Start visual block mode
• Esc or Ctrl+[ – Exit visual mode

Clipboard

• yy – Yank (copy) a line
• p – Paste after cursor
• P – Paste before cursor
• dd – Delete (cut) a line
• x – Delete (cut) current character
• X – Delete (cut) previous character
• d / c – By default, these copy the deleted text

Exiting

• :w – Write (save) the file, but don’t quit
• :wq – Write (save) and quit
• :q – Quit (fails if anything has changed)
• :q! – Quit and throw away changes

Search/Replace

• /pattern – Search for pattern
• ?pattern – Search backward for pattern
• n – Repeat search in same direction
• N – Repeat search in opposite direction
• :%s/old/new/g – Replace all old with new throughout file (gn is better though)
• :%s/old/new/gc – Replace all old with new throughout file with confirmations

General

• u – Undo
• Ctrl+r – Redo

Advanced

Cursor movement

• Ctrl+d – Move down half a page
• Ctrl+u – Move up half a page
• } – Go forward by paragraph (the next blank line)
• { – Go backward by paragraph (the next blank line)
• gg – Go to the top of the page
• G – Go the bottom of the page
• : [num] [enter] – Go to that line in the document
• ctrl+e / ctrl+y – Scroll down/up one line

Character search

• f [char] – Move forward to the given char
• F [char] – Move backward to the given char
• t [char] – Move forward to before the given char
• T [char] – Move backward to before the given char
• ; / , – Repeat search forwards/backwards

Editing text

• J – Join line below to the current one
• r [char] – Replace a single character with the specified char (does not use Insert mode)

Visual mode

• O – Move to other corner of block
• o – Move to other end of marked area

File Tabs

• :e filename – Edit a file
• :tabe – Make a new tab
• gt – Go to the next tab
• gT – Go to the previous tab
• :vsp – Vertically split windows
• ctrl+ws – Split windows horizontally
• ctrl+wv – Split windows vertically
• ctrl+ww – Switch between windows
• ctrl+wq – Quit a window

Marks

• Marks allow you to jump to designated points in your code.
• m{a-z} – Set mark {a-z} at cursor position
• A capital mark {A-Z} sets a global mark and will work between files
• '{a-z} – Move the cursor to the start of the line where the mark was set
• '' – Go back to the previous jump location

Text Objects

• Say you have def (arg1, arg2, arg3), where your cursor is somewhere in the middle of the parenthesis.
• di( deletes everything between the parenthesis. That says “change everything inside the nearest parenthesis”. Without text objects, you would need to do T(dt).
• Learn more

General

• . – Repeat last command
• Ctrl+r + 0 in insert mode inserts the last yanked text (or in command mode)
• gv – reselect (select last selected block of text, from visual mode)
• % – jumps between matching () or {}

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