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vi intro -- the cheat sheet method

Daniel Robbins, President/CEO, Gentoo Technologies, Inc.

Daniel Robbins resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is the President/CEO of Gentoo Technologies, Inc., the Chief Architect of the Gentoo Project and a contributing author of several books published by MacMillan: Caldera OpenLinux Unleashed, SuSE Linux Unleashed, and Samba Unleashed. Daniel has been involved with computers in some fashion since the second grade, when he was first exposed to the Logo programming language as well as a potentially dangerous dose of Pac Man. This probably explains why he has since served as a Lead Graphic Artist at SONY Electronic Publishing/Psygnosis. Daniel enjoys spending time with his wife, Mary, and his new baby daughter, Hadassah. You can contact him at drobbins@gentoo.org.

Summary: This tutorial shows how to use vi, a powerful visual editor. Using an accelerated cheat sheet method, this tutorial aims to make you a proficient vi user without requiring a huge time commitment. You will quickly learn how to move around, edit text, use insert mode, copy and paste text, and use important vim extensions like visual mode and multi-window editing.

Date: 16 Nov 2012 (Published 19 Dec 2000)
Level: Introductory
PDF: A4 and Letter (649 KB | 15 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®

Activity: 60308 views
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Resources

Learn

The vi Lovers Home Page is an excellent resource for all things vi.
The vim home page is the place to go for all your vim needs, including downloads. and additional documentation.
"UNIX tips and tricks for a new user, Part 2: The vi text editor" (developerWorks, November 2006) is another developerWorks tutorial on vi.
If you're looking for a good, old-fashioned book, Learning the vi Editor, 6th Edition (O'Reilly; 1998) is an excellent choice. It covers vi and vi clones.
In the developerWorks Linux zone, find more resources for Linux developers.
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