Mastering Vim

Moving around: talk to your editor

Vim allows you to navigate content a lot more efficiently than most conventional editors. Let's start with the basics.

You can move your cursor around character by character by using arrow keys or letters h, j, k, and l. This is the least efficient and the most precise way to move:

Key	Alternative key	Action
h	Left arrow	Move cursor left
j	Down arrow	Move cursor down
k	Up arrow	Move cursor up
l	Right arrow	Move cursor right

The following diagram is a visual representation which might be a little easier on the eyes:

Vi (Vim's predecessor) was created on an old ADM-3A terminal, which didn't ...