vi

CAUTION: This chart is not guaranteed to be accurate. Use at your own risk.

Don't know what "vi" is? Consider yourself lucky and return to my main page. :-)

Use set smd (or :set showmode on some systems) to activate the append/input/command mode signal.

For most Command Mode commands, prefixing the command with a number (n) will execute that command n times.

Entering Insert Mode ([Esc] exits)
i insert @ c.c.	a append right of c.c.	o new line following c.l.
I insert @ beginning of c.l.	A append @ end of c.l.	O new line before c.l.

Cursor Movement
^B scroll up 1 page (Back)	^U scroll up ½ page (Up)	^D scroll down ½ page (Down)	^F scroll down 1 page (Forward)
0 cursor to beginning of c.l.	$ cursor to end of c.l.	w cursor to beginning of next word	nl cursor to beginning of col. n
nG cursor to beginning of line n	G cursor to last line in file	[Enter] cursor to beginning of next line

Copying Text
y copy c.c.	yn copy n characters¹	yw copy current word	yy copy c.l.
y$ copy to end of c.l.	y) copy to end of sentence	y} copy to end of paragraph	Y copy c.l.

¹Note that "yanking" text works weird. If you type y5, then [down arrow], it yanks 6 lines. Use [right arrow] after the command to be fairly safe.

Pasting/Deleting Text
p paste to right of cursor	x delete character under cursor	dd delete c.l.	D delete to end of c.l.
:D delete c.l. (same as dd)	:D$ delete to end of c.l. (same as D)	:u undo delete

Searching & Replacing
/string search forward for string	?string search backward for string	:%s/old/new/g global replace	/ repeat forward find
? repeat find backward	n repeat find (same direction)	N repeat find (reverse direction)	:g/string/d delete lines containing string
rc replace c.c. with c	~ reverse upper/lower case	:s/old/new/n replace n times

Quitting & Saving
:q quit	:q! quit without saving	:w save	:w filename save as filename
:x save and quit	ZZ save and quit	:wq save and quit

In case you're wondering, this page was created mostly with Microsoft's "Notepad," but some touch-ups were done with vi.

...well, sorta. :-)