Visual Mode

There are easy ways and hard ways to select text, but they are both useful and worth getting to know. The easiest way is called Visual Mode. Trigger it by pressing v or V. A lower case v starts highlighting text one letter at a time; this is good when you want to edit part of a sentence. A capital V starts highlighting text one line at a time. When you've selected the text, hit d to delete it (or ``cut'' it, since it winds up in a buffer), or y to yank (``copy'') it. Then navigate to where you want and hit p to place (``paste'') it. Normally, the cursor remains at the top of what you have just pasted, which gives you a chance to scroll down through the next text. But if you want to paste and go, gp and gP paste and then reposition the cursor at the bottom of the next text.

You can also use t and f to advance the cursor until a point just before or right on the letter you are searching for. I frequently start visual mode with v and then advance up to the first comma and delete it. That looks like this: vf,d. That is, ``start visual mode, advance to the comma, delete.'' Otherwise, use the a key plus w, s, p to add a word, sentence, or paragraph. But I just as often use the regular motion commands, and they work fine.

Figure 8: Visual Mode Selection Commands

The more complicated way is to use the motion commands alone to select areas. For example, if you want to copy the entire sentence you just wrote, you could issue y( (that is, ``yank to the beginning of the sentence''). You'll get no visual feedback for this operation, but the text will be yanked and ready to place elsewhere. As an author, though, this is a fast way to keep your hands on the keyboard. If you don't like what you just wrote, a simple d( will remove your last sentence, d5b will remove the last 5 words, dTZ will delete back until the last occurrence of a capital Z, and so on.