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LO G I N 

Getting started with Vim: The basics

Learn to use Vim enough to get by at work or for a new
project.

By Bryant Son (Alumni)

March 25, 2019 | 6 Comments | 11 min read 205 readers like this.

Image by: Opensource.com

I remember the very first time I encountered Vim. I was a university student, and
the computers in the computer science department's lab were installed with
Ubuntu Linux. While I had been exposed to different Linux variations (like RHEL)
even before my college years (Red Hat sold its CDs at Best Buy!), this was the first
time I needed to use the Linux operating system regularly, because my classes
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required me to do so. Once I started using Linux, like many others before and after
me, I began to feel like a "real programmer."

Real Programmers, by xkcd

Students could use a graphical text editor like Kate, which was installed on the lab
computers by default. For students who could use the shell but weren't used to the
console-based editor, the popular choice was Nano, which provided good
interactive menus and an experience similar to Windows' graphical text editor.

I used Nano sometimes, but I heard awesome things about Vi/Vim and Emacs and
really wanted to give them a try (mainly because they looked cool, and I was also
curious to see what was so great about them). Using Vim for the first time scared
me—I did not want to mess anything up! But once I got the hang of it, things
became much easier and I could appreciate the editor's powerful capabilities. As
for Emacs, well, I sort of gave up, but I'm happy I stuck with Vim.

In this article, I will walk through Vim (based on my personal experience) just
enough so you can get by with it as an editor on a Linux system. This will neither
make you an expert nor even scratch the surface of many of Vim's powerful
capabilities. But the starting point always matters, and I want to make the
beginning experience as easy as possible, and you can explore the rest on your
own.

Step 0: Open a console window

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Before jumping into Vim, you need to do a little preparation. Open a console
terminal from your Linux operating system. (Since Vim is also available on MacOS,
Mac users can use these instructions, also.)

Once a terminal window is up, type the ls command to list the current directory.
Then, type mkdir Tutorial to create a new directory called Tutorial. Go inside
the directory by typing cd Tutorial.

That's it for preparation. Now it's time to move on to the fun part—starting to use
Vim.

Step 1: Create and close a Vim file without saving

Remember when I said I was scared to use Vim at first? Well, the scary part was
thinking, "what if I change an existing file and mess things up?" After all, several
computer science assignments required me to work on existing files by modifying
them. I wanted to know: How can I open and close a file without saving my
changes?

The good news is you can use the same command to create or open a file in
Vim: vim <FILE_NAME>, where <FILE_NAME> represents the target file name

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you want to create or modify. Let's create a file named HelloWorld.java by typing
vim HelloWorld.java.

Hello, Vim! Now, here is a very important concept in Vim, possibly the most
important to remember: Vim has multiple modes. Here are three you need to know
to do Vim basics:

Mode Description

Normal Default; for navigation and simple editing

Insert For explicitly inserting and modifying text

Command Line For operations like saving, exiting, etc.

Vim has other modes, like Visual, Select, and Ex-Mode, but Normal, Insert, and
Command Line modes are good enough for us.

You are now in Normal mode. If you have text, you can move around with your
arrow keys or other navigation keystrokes (which you will see later). To make sure
you are in Normal mode, simply hit the Esc (Escape) key.

Tip: Esc switches to Normal mode. Even though you are already in
Normal mode, hit Esc just for practice's sake.

Now, this will be interesting. Press : (the colon key) followed by q! (i.e., :q!). Your
screen will look like this:

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Pressing the colon in Normal mode switches Vim to Command Line mode, and the
:q! command quits the Vim editor without saving. In other words, you are
abandoning all changes. You can also use ZQ; choose whichever option is more
convenient.

Once you hit Enter, you should no longer be in Vim. Repeat the exercise a few
times, just to get the hang of it. Once you've done that, move on to the next
section to learn how to make a change to this file.

Step 2: Make and save modifications in Vim

Reopen the file by typing vim HelloWorld.java and pressing the Enter key. Insert
mode is where you can make changes to a file. First, hit Esc to make sure you are
in Normal mode, then press i to go into Insert mode. (Yes, that is the letter i.)

In the lower-left, you should see -- INSERT --. This means you are in Insert mode.

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Type some Java code. You can type anything you want, but here is an example for
you to follow. Your screen will look like this:

public class HelloWorld {

public static void main(String[] args) {
}
}

Very pretty! Notice how the text is highlighted in Java syntax highlight colors.
Because you started the file in Java, Vim will detect the syntax color.

Save the file. Hit Esc to leave Insert mode and enter Command Line mode. Type :
and follow that with x! (i.e., a colon followed by x and !). Hit Enter to save the file.
You can also type wq to perform the same operation.

Now you know how to enter text using Insert mode and save the file using :x! or
:wq.

Step 3: Basic navigation in Vim

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While you can always use your friendly Up, Down, Left, and Right arrow buttons to
move around a file, that would be very difficult in a large file with almost countless
lines. It's also helpful to be able to be able to jump around within a line. Although
Vim has a ton of awesome navigation features, the first one I want to show you is
how to go to a specific line.

Press the Esc key to make sure you are in Normal mode, then type :set number
and hit Enter .

Voila! You see line numbers on the left side of each line.

OK, you may say, "that's cool, but how do I jump to a line?" Again, make sure you
are in Normal mode, then press :<LINE_NUMBER>, where <LINE_NUMBER> is
the number of the line you want to go to, and press Enter. Try moving to line 2.

:2

Now move to line 3.

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But imagine a scenario where you are dealing with a file that is 1,000 lines long and
you want to go to the end of the file. How do you get there? Make sure you are in
Normal mode, then type :$ and press Enter.

You will be on the last line!

Now that you know how to jump among the lines, as a bonus, let's learn how to
move to the end of a line. Make sure you are on a line with some text, like line 3,
and type $.

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You're now at the last character on the line. In this example, the open curly brace is
highlighted to show where your cursor moved to, and the closing curly brace is
highlighted because it is the opening curly brace's matching character.

That's it for basic navigation in Vim. Wait, don't exit the file, though. Let's move to
basic editing in Vim. Feel free to grab a cup of coffee or tea, though.

Step 4: Basic editing in Vim

Now that you know how to navigate around a file by hopping onto the line you
want, you can use that skill to do some basic editing in Vim. Switch to Insert mode.
(Remember how to do that, by hitting the i key?) Sure, you can edit by using the
keyboard to delete or insert characters, but Vim offers much quicker ways to edit
files.

Move to line 3, where it shows public static void main(String[] args) {. Quickly
hit the d key twice in succession. Yes, that is dd. If you did it successfully, you will
see a screen like this, where line 3 is gone, and every following line moved up by
one (i.e., line 4 became line 3).

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That's the delete command. Don't fear! Hit u and you will see the deleted line
recovered. Whew. This is the undo command.

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The next lesson is learning how to copy and paste text, but first, you need to learn
how to highlight text in Vim. Press v and move your Left and Right arrow buttons
to select and deselect text. This feature is also very useful when you are showing
code to others and want to identify the code you want them to see.

Move to line 4, where it says System.out.println("Hello, Opensource");.

Highlight all of line 4. Done? OK, while line 4 is still highlighted, press y. This is
called yank mode, and it will copy the text to the clipboard. Next, create a new line
underneath by entering o. Note that this will put you into Insert mode. Get out of
Insert mode by pressing Esc, then hit p, which stands for paste. This will paste the
copied text from line 3 to line 4.

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As an exercise, repeat these steps but also modify the text on your newly created
lines. Also, make sure the lines are aligned well.

Hint: You need to switch back and forth between Insert mode and
Command Line mode to accomplish this task.

Once you are finished, save the file with the x! command. That's all for basic
editing in Vim.

Step 5: Basic searching in Vim

Imagine your team lead wants you to change a text string in a project. How can you
do that quickly? You might want to search for the line using a certain keyword.

Vim's search functionality can be very useful. Go into the Command Line mode by
(1) pressing Esc key, then (2) pressing colon : key. We can search a keyword by
entering :/<SEARCH_KEYWORD>, where <SEARCH_KEYWORD> is the text
string you want to find. Here we are searching for the keyword string "Hello." In the
image below, the colon is missing but required.

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However, a keyword can appear more than once, and this may not be the one you
want. So, how do you navigate around to find the next match? You simply press the
n key, which stands for next. Make sure that you aren't in Insert mode when you do
this!

Bonus step: Use split mode in Vim

That pretty much covers all the Vim basics. But, as a bonus, I want to show you a
cool Vim feature called split mode.

Get out of HelloWorld.java and create a new file. In a terminal window, type vim
GoodBye.java and hit Enter to create a new file named GoodBye.java.

Enter any text you want; I decided to type "Goodbye." Save the file. (Remember
you can use :x! or :wq in Command Line mode.)

In Command Line mode, type :split HelloWorld.java, and see what happens.

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Wow! Look at that! The split command created horizontally divided windows with
HelloWorld.java above and GoodBye.java below. How can you switch between the
windows? Hold Control (on a Mac) or CTRL (on a PC) then hit ww (i.e., w twice in
succession).

As a final exercise, try to edit GoodBye.java to match the screen below by copying
and pasting from HelloWorld.java.

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Save both files, and you are done!

TIP 1: If you want to arrange the files vertically, use the command :vsplit
<FILE_NAME> (instead of :split <FILE_NAME>, where
<FILE_NAME> is the name of the file you want to open in Split mode.

TIP 2: You can open more than two files by calling as many additional
split or vsplit commands as you want. Try it and see how it looks.

Vim cheat sheet

In this article, you learned how to use Vim just enough to get by for work or a
project. But this is just the beginning of your journey to unlock Vim's powerful
capabilities. Be sure to check out other great tutorials and tips on
Opensource.com.

To make things a little easier, I've summarized everything you've learned into a
handy cheat sheet.

Tags: TEXT EDITORS VIM

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Bryant Son
Bryant Jimin Son is an Octocat, which not official title but
likes to be called that way, at GitHub, a company widely
known for hosting most open source projects in the
world. At work, he is exploring different git technology,
GitHub Actions, GitHub security, etc. Previously, he was a
Senior Consultant at Red Hat, a technology company
known for its Linux server and opensource contributions.

More about me

6 Comments
These comments are closed.

Greg Pittman | March 25, 2019

No readers like this yet.

For new users, it's probably better to use :q instead of :q!, since the former
will give you a warning if you haven't saved the file. Similarly, :w will write
to the file, but warn if you are overwriting some existing file that was not
the one you opened with.

Bryant Son | March 27, 2019

No readers like this yet.

Thanks, Greg, for sharing the tip!

André Jaenisch | March 26, 2019

No readers like this yet.
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Hi Bryant,

thanks for the quick intro.

May you want to add the help texts? (:help something)

What about adding Further Readings?

https://pragprog.com/book/dnvim2/practical-vim-second-edition and
https://pragprog.com/book/modvim/modern-vim spring to my mind.

For more interactive people, https://github.com/TheNaoX/vimtutor or

https://vim-adventures.com/ might be fun.

There's SO much to learn on Vim.

I miss situations where I can't use it by now.

Kind regards

André

Bryant Son | March 27, 2019

No readers like this yet.

Thank you, Andre, for the compliment and also sharing great
resources. I will take a look at them and see if I can have a chance to
include them in the future writing, or feel free to contribute to
Opensource.com blog as well. I also agree that there are so much to
learn about VIM :)

Eddie OConnor | April 9, 2019

No readers like this yet.

AWESOME stuff!....thanks so much for this!...I've been trying to get a

handle on Vim for YEARS!....But at least now?...I have a baseline of
commands and actions that I can build on...you are awesome!...

Cheers!
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Bryant Son | April 11, 2019

No readers like this yet.

Wow! Thanks for the compliment.

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