My vim cheatsheet

Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is based on a modal editing philosophy, where you switch between modes for inserting text, navigating, and issuing commands.

Modes

Normal mode: Navigation and commands (default)
Insert mode: Text input (i, I, a, A, o, O)
Visual mode: Select text (v, V, Ctrl+v)
Command-line mode: Commands starting with :

Navigation

gg: Go to the beginning of the file
G: Go to the end of the file
0: Go to the beginning of the line
^: Go to the first non-blank character of the line
$: Go to the end of the line
w: Next word
b: Previous word
e: End of word
f<char>: Find character on the line
;: Repeat previous f or F or t or T motion in the same direction
,: Repeat previous f or F or t or T motion in the opposite direction
gd: Go to local definition

Insert mode

i: Insert before cursor
I: Insert at the beginning of the line
a: Append after cursor
A: Append at the end of the line
o: Open new line below
O: Open new line above

Editing actions

d: Delete (combine with motions, e.g., dw)
c: Change (e.g., cw to change word)
y: Yank (copy)
p: Paste after cursor
P: Paste before cursor
v: Enter visual mode
u: Undo
Ctrl+r: Redo
.: Repeat last command

Motions & text objects

i{object}: Inner object (inside)
a{object}: Around object (including delimiters)
Common objects: w (word), b (bracket), t (tag), q (quote)
Example: ciw (change inner word), da" (delete around quotes)

Visual mode

v: Character-wise visual mode
V: Line-wise visual mode
o: Move to other end of selection

Case changing

Select the text then:

U: Uppercase
u: Lowercase
~: Toggle case

Search & replace

/pattern: Search forward
?pattern: Search backward
n / N: Next/previous match
:%s/old/new/g: Replace all in file

Saving & quitting

:w: Save
:q: Quit
:wq or :x: Save and quit
:qa!: Quit all without saving