vi editor : the ultimate cheat sheet

For beginners in UNIX, vi editor  is a source of frustration. Typically users being their UNIX journey with vi, give up on it in the first week or two and flee to emacs, pine and other sort of editors.

For Command Mode type   “Esc”

For Insert Mode   type       “a”

For Visual Mode    type       “v”

For Line Mode       type     “:”

you wanna ….	this is how u do it notepad	this is how you do it in vi
type text	just type	insert mode + type
undo	NA	command mode + u
move your cursor up left down right	use arrow keys	insert mode + use arrow keys
page down	use page down key	insert mode + use page down key but if this doesn’t work try ctrl f
page up	page up key	insert mode + page up key but if this doesn’t work try ctrl b
delete character	delete  key	insert mode+ delete if it doesn’t  work go for command mode + x
backspace	backspace	insert mode + backspace
highlight some area	use mouse	visual mode + use cursor
copy the highlighted text	highlight the area with the mouse and press ctrl c to copy highlighted area	visual mode + use cursor to select the area that needs to be copied and press ‘y’ key
cut the highlighted text
delete the  highlighted text	highlight the area with the mouse and press the delete key to delete the highlighted aea	visual mode + use curor to select the area that needs to be deleted and press ‘d’ key
paste what ever is in the clipboard	ctrl v	p
find text	ctrl f  … type the text in the find window…	/text    or ?text
quit file		line mode + q . If no changes it will silently quit. Other wise   it  says use q! or wq
quit file without saving changes	just close the window ….	line mode + q!
quit file by saving changes	ctrl s + close the window	line mode +wq