Getting Started With Vim

You do not need to be a command line wizard to be able to use Vim. Using Vim consists in three simple steps: opening Vim, making the necessary text edits, then saving and exiting.

1. Opening Vim

vim helloworld.txt

Using the vim command followed by a file name will result in opening that file in the vim editor. If that file does not already exist in your current directory, it will be created.

Result of opening a new file using vim

In this case, we see [New File], because I did not have a helloworld.txt already present in my directory, so I am creating it.

2. Using Vim

In order to go any further, we need to get a grasp on how Vim generally works. These are the key concepts you need to remember:

• Vim is a text editor (just like VSCode) that runs in your terminal.
• Once you open Vim, you get into an interactive mode.
• IMPORTANT: Vim has multiple modes.
• IMPORTANT: Vim operates on commands.
• Vim is extremely configurable.

Theory behind modes & commands: