Vi Short Command Reference

Vi short command reference (Learn or review your Vi commands with this concise reference) by: Krissy J. krissyj@robotz.com

Operation

i	input mode
esc	command mode
:se number	display line numbers
:se nonumber	don't display line numbers
:e	open file
:w	save (write) file to disk
:wq	save and quit
:q!	quit but don't save
number,command	apply command number times (e.g. 4,x = delete 4 characters)
.	repeat last effective cmd
esc,u	undo it
ctrl-r	redo it

 

Navigation and movement

-	go to beginning of previous line
0 (zero) or ^	go to beginning of this line
$	go to end of this line
ret or +	= go to beginning of next line (NOT THE SAME AS INPUT RETURN)
w	go to beginning of next word
b	go to beginning of this word
e	go to end of this word
sft-h	go to first line onscreen
sft-l	go to last line onscreen
ctrl-f	forward (down) one screen
ctrl-b	backward (up) one screen
1,sft-g	top of the buffer
sft-g	bottom of the buffer (i.e. EOF)
line,sft-g	go to line (e.g. 3,5,sft-g = line 35)
	= column 4)
sft-J	Join / bring next line up (append next line to end)

 

Deletion

deleted text is put to the general purpose buffer; use the p cmd to retrieve it you can also use yanks to not delete it but still put it in the GPB basically delete = cut and yank = copy in your OS's Edit menu

x	delete this character
d,w	delete word
d,d	delete line
sft-d	delete to end of line (same as emacs ctrl-k)
y,w	yank to beginning of next word
sft-y or y,$	yank to end of line
y,y	yank entire line
buffer"lines"y,y	yank lines number of lines into buffer buffer (a-z)
p	paste contents of general-purpose buffer

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