Easier Long Lines Navigation in Vim

Simple mappings to improve navigation in markdown files and others.

"I was getting frustrated editing markdown files with long lines…"

Said one of my newsletter subscribers. So I gave him a tip.

The Problem

If you write something other than code in Vim — like documentation, or any other text, this one tip might be useful.

If you have a wrap option enabled, with a very long sentence, Vim will stretch your current sentence over the multiple rows.

But that will still be a single “physical” line. It might be tricky to move between those rows/lines.

Hitting arrow-down or j will move the cursor down one physical line.

The Solution

By hitting gj will move the cursor down one displayed line.

This will enable you to easily move around on a long sentence wrapped in multiple rows/lines.

The easiest way to go with this is to simply add the following mapping:

“ move vertically by visual line with j and k
nnoremap j gj
nnoremap k gk

Try it out.
It makes navigating much easier.

You'll notice that you can still jump the visual lines using the arrows.

I share tips like this via Mastering Vim Quickly Newsletter.

Useful links & references:

• Vim Documentation ( :help )
• “Mastering Vim Quickly” book (by Jovica Ilic).

Footnotes from vim drops publication:

• This post is an awesome contribution by Jovica Ilic !
• If you have any doubts or tips about this article, we’d appreciate to know and to discuss it on the comments section.
• Do you have any other vim tips? Would you like to publish that on this blog? Please send me and email at ‘vimdrops AT pm DOT me’.
• As English is not my first language, I apologize for errors. Corrections are welcome at ‘vimdrops AT pm DOT me’.