Unix Vi Commands

Cursor control and position

h	Left
j	Down
k	Up
l (or spacebar)	Right
w	Forward one word
b	Back one word
e	End of word
(	Beginning of current sentence
)	Beginning of next sentence
{	Beginning of current paragraph
}	Beginning of next paragraph
[[	Beginning of current section
]]	Beginning of next section
0	Start of current line
$	End of current line
^	First non-white character of current line
+ or RETURN	First character of next line
-	First character of previous line
n |	character n of current line
H	Top line of current screen
M	Middle line of current screen
L	Last line of current screen
nH	n lines after top line of current screen
nL	n lines before last line of current screen
Ctrl-F	Forward one screen
Ctrl-B	Back one screen
Ctrl-D	Down half a screen
Ctrl-U	Up half a screen
Ctrl-E	Display another line at bottom of screen
Ctrl-Y	Display another line at top of screen
z RETURN	Redraw screen with cursor at top
z .	Redraw screen with cursor in middle
z -	Redraw screen with cursor at bottom
Ctrl-L	Redraw screen without re-positioning
Ctrl-R	Redraw screen without re-positioning
/text	Search for text (forwards)
/	Repeat forward search
?text	Search for text (backwards)
?	Repeat previous search backwards
n	Repeat previous search
N	Repeat previous search, but it opposite direction
/text/+n	Go to line n after text
?text?-n	Go to line n before text
%	Find match of current parenthesis, brace, or bracket.
Ctrl-G	Display line number of cursor
nG	Move cursor to line number n
:n	Move cursor to line number n
G	Move to last line in file

Editing

A	Append to end of current line
i	Insert before cursor
I	Insert at beginning of line
o	Open line above cursor
O	Open line below cursor
ESC	End of insert mode
Ctrl-I	Insert a tab
Ctrl-T	Move to next tab position
Backspace	Move back one character
Ctrl-U	Delete current line
Ctrl-V	Quote next character
Ctrl-W	Move back one word
cw	Change word
cc	Change line
C	Change from current position to end of line
dd	Delete current line
ndd	Delete n lines
D	Delete remainer of line
dw	Delete word
d}	Delete rest of paragraph
d^	Delete back to start of line
c/pat	Delete up to first occurance of pattern
dn	Delete up to next occurance of pattern
dfa	Delete up to and including a on current line
dta	Delete up to, but not including, a on current line
dL	Delete up to last line on screen
dG	Delete to end of file
J	Join two lines
p	Insert buffer after cursor
P	Insert buffer before cursor
rx	Replace character with x
Rtext	Replace text beginning at cursor
s	Substitute character
ns	Substitute n characters
S	Substitute entire line
u	Undo last change
U	Restore current line
x	Delete current cursor position
X	Delete back one character
nX	Delete previous n characters
.	Repeat last change
~	Reverse case
y	Copy current line to new buffer
yy	Copy current line
"xyy	Copy current line into buffer x
"Xd	Delete and append into buffer x
"xp	Put contents of buffer x
y]]	Copy up to next section heading
ye	Copy to end of word

File Handling

:w	Write file
:w!	Write file (ignoring warnings)
:w! file	Overwrite file (ignoring warnings)
:wq	Write file and quit
:q	Quit
:q!	Quit (even if changes not saved)
:w file	Write file as file, leaving original untouched
ZZ	Quit, only writing file if changed
:x	Quit, only writing file if changed
:n1,n2w file	Write lines n1 to n2 to file
:n1,n2w >> file	Append lines n1 to n2 to file
:e file2	Edit file2 (current file becomes alternate file)
:e!	Reload file from disk (revert to previous saved version)
:e#	Edit alternate file
%	Display current filename
#	Display alternate filename
:n	Edit next file
:n!	Edit next file (ignoring warnings)
:n files	Specify new list of files
:r file	Insert file after cursor
:r !command	Run command, and insert output after current line