Practical Vim, 2nd Edition

Tip 123

Fix Spelling Errors from Insert Mode

Vim’s spelling autocompletion allows us to fix typos without even having to leave Insert mode.

Picture this: we’ve just typed a line of text, and then we realize that there’s a spelling mistake a few words back. What can we do?

Preparation

This technique depends on having the spell checker enabled:

:set spell

The Usual Way: Switch to Normal Mode

To fix the mistake, we could switch to Normal mode, use the [s command to jump back to the spelling mistake, and then use 1z= to fix it. Having made the correction, we could then switch back to Insert mode with the A command, continuing where we left off.

The Fast Way: Use Spelling Autocompletion

Alternatively, we could fix the error from Insert ...