Vim Help Tips

Notation

This is how a key is notated

Control key, with the 'j' key

[] Optional. Characters inside the square brackets are optional

{descriptor} Required. The "{" indicates "this is what i'm describing inside"

Control key, with a "motion" ("motion" is what vim uses for "direction")

CTRL with character. The case of {char} does not matter (CTRL-C and CTRL-c) are equivalent The lowercased key is to be used (don't use the SHIFT key; this will produce another code)

Enter / Carriage-return / Return

x Normal mode command

Context is prepended to the command v Visual mode command i Insert mode command : Command line command :help x c_ Command line editing (editing a command in the command line)

c_ CTRL+C when inside command line mode

Navigating in :help {command}

Go "into" the help text (when there is a hotlink)

Go to previous help page (previous entry in Tag stack)

Go to previous help page (Older cursor position)

Useful help commands

:help Enter help :help CTRL-A This gives help on the CTRL-A command ("control character") :only Make the current window the only one on the screen, all other windows are closed

:help index Show the default keybindings