vi cheat-sheet

a. cursor movements (items below are sometimes called objects):

      h - left one character 
      l - right one character 
      j - down one line 
      k - up one line 
      w - right one word 
      b - back one word 
      $ - to the end of line 
      0 - to the beginning of the line 
      ) - right one sentence 
      ( - left one sentence 
      } - right one paragraph 
      { - left one paragraph 
      Ctrl-F - forward one page 
      Ctrl-B - back one page 
      G - go to (without arguments, go to end of file) 

b. deleting:

      d - delete 
              then add one of the cursor movement symbols to 
              show what should be deleted, i.e.: 
              d$ - delete to end of line 
              d0 - delete to the beginning of the line 
              d} - delete to the end of paragraph 
      dd - delete delete (delete the whole line) 
      x - delete character cursor is on 

c. other basic commands:

      r - replace one character 
      ZZ - save and exit (hold down shift and press "z" twice) 
      y - yank (copy into temporary buffer) 
              then add cursor movement symbol to show what should be 
              copied, for example: y) - copy to the end of sentence 
      Y - yank line cursor is on 
      p - paste below cursor line (deleted or copied text) 
      P - paste above cursor line 
      u - undo last editing command 
      /sometext - search for "sometext" 

d. any command can take numeric argument before the name of “object”, i.e.:

      5dd - delete 5 lines beginning with cursor line (or) d5d - same 
      2dw - delete two words (or) d2w - delete two words 
      c3w - change 3 words 
      3Ctrl-B - move up three pages 
      1G - go to the first line 

e. external commands can be performed on the selected text (in lines)

 if command is started with "!", i.e.: 
      !}fmt - reformat paragraph to 72 columns 

f. command line (sometimes called “ex mode”):

      : 

g. from the command line a “set” command can be executed to

 customize editing environment, i.e.: 
      :set all - will show the state of all options 
      :set number - will show on the screen numbers of all lines 
      :set autoindent   // obvious 

h. from the command line operations can be performed on the range of lines,

 i.e.: 
      :18,24 del - delete from line 18 to line 24 
      :23,48 copy 17 - block from line 23 to 48 copy to line 17 
      :2,17 move 92 - block from line 2 to 17 move to line 92 

i. from the command line any external UNIX command can be performed on

 the range of lines if line range is superseded by "!": 
      :11,16! sed -e "s/^//*/" -e "s/$/*//" 

(the command above wraps the block of text with

               "C" style comments - /* text */.  It can be done 
                easier, but this is an example) 
      :14,19! sort -r +3 
              (sort the table in reverse order by fourth column) 

j. file manipulation from the command line:

      :r somefile - read in "somefile" 
      :x - save and exit (if file is "Read Only", this command will 
              exit without saving) 
      :wq - write and quit (same as above) 
      :w - write (save) if the file permissions allow it 
      :w! - save file even if it is read-only as long as we own it 
      :w somefile - save this file as "somefile" 
      :q - quit without saving 
      :q! - quit without saving if changes were made 

k. text input commands (all require “Esc” to terminate):

      i - insert text before the character cursor is on 
      I - insert text at the beginning of the line 
      a - append (insert text after the character cursor is on) 
      A - append text to the end of the line 
      c - change (replace previous text with new one) 
              takes arguments just like the delete command - it is 
              a fast and powerful way of changing original text - 
              much more so than typical "overwrite" 

R - start overwriting text

      o - start entering text at the beginning of the new line 
          below the cursor 
      O - start entering text at the beginning of the new line 
          above the cursor 

l. if in doubt, press “Esc”