The 14 most essential commands you need for your everyday typing needs are right here!
Bookmark this site for easy reference later, or even use this as a starting point to build your own cheat sheet. And if you're looking for a more detailed introduction to Vim, check out Part 1 of this series!
Note: these commands are used in Normal mode unless otherwise specified.
Move cursor to the left/up/down/right
h/j/k/l
Insert text
i
This puts you into writing mode, inserting the cursor right before its current position.
Visual mode
v
Entering visual mode will allow you to highlight text by moving your cursor.
Yank
y
When in visual mode, copies (aka yanks) the highlighted text into your Vim clipboard
Copy to system clipboard
"+y
When in visual mode, copies the highlighted text into your system clipboard. This means you’ll be able to paste it into other apps on your computer.
Puts
p
Pastes (aka puts) whatever’s in your Vim clipboard in the space after your cursor.
Undo
u
Delete character
x
Deletes the character immediately under the cursor.
Delete word
dw
Deletes the remainder of the word from the current position of the cursor. Note: this will also add the deleted text into the Vim clipboard.
Move cursor to start of next word
w
Move cursor to the start of the previous word
b
Move cursor to the line number <n>
<n>g
Search for the next occurrence of specified <text> in the file
/<text>
When you press <Enter>, the next occurrence of <text> will be highlighted.
Search and replace
:%s/<old text>/<replacement text>/gc
Globally replaces every occurrence of <old text> in the file and replaces it with <replacement text>. The c option also means that the user will be prompted to confirm each change
