vi and Vim Editors Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition

vi Commands

vi commands are used in “screen” mode (the default), where you use the commands to move around the screen and to perform operations on the text.

Most vi commands follow a general pattern:

[command][number]textobject

or the equivalent form:

[number][command]textobject

Movement Commands

vi movement commands distinguish between two kinds of “words.” The lowercase commands define a word as a contiguous sequence of underscores, letters, and digits. The uppercase commands define a word as a contiguous sequence of nonwhitespace characters.

Command	Meaning
Character
h, j, k, l	Left, down, up, right (←, ↓, ↑, →)
Text
w, W, b, B	Forward, backward by word
e, E	End of word
), (	Beginning of next, previous sentence
}, {	Beginning of next, previous paragraph
]], [[	Beginning of next, previous section
Lines
ENTER	First nonblank character of next line
0, $	First, last position of current line
^	First nonblank character of current line
+, -	First nonblank character of next, previous line
n |	Column n of current line
H, M, L	Top, middle, last line of screen
n H	n (number) of lines after top line
n L	n (number) of lines before last line
Scrolling
CTRL-F, CTRL-B	Scroll forward, backward one screen
CTRL-D, CTRL-U	Scroll down, up one half-screen
CTRL-E, CTRL-Y	Show one more line at bottom, top of window
z ENTER	Reposition line with cursor: to top of screen
z.	Reposition line with cursor: to middle of screen
z–	Reposition line with cursor: to bottom of screen
CTRL-L	Redraw screen (without scrolling)

Command	Meaning
Searches
/pattern	Search forward ...