1*usr_25.txt* For Vim version 7.3. Last change: 2007 May 11 2 3 VIM USER MANUAL - by Bram Moolenaar 4 5 Editing formatted text 6 7 8Text hardly ever comes in one sentence per line. This chapter is about 9breaking sentences to make them fit on a page and other formatting. 10Vim also has useful features for editing single-line paragraphs and tables. 11 12|25.1| Breaking lines 13|25.2| Aligning text 14|25.3| Indents and tabs 15|25.4| Dealing with long lines 16|25.5| Editing tables 17 18 Next chapter: |usr_26.txt| Repeating 19 Previous chapter: |usr_24.txt| Inserting quickly 20Table of contents: |usr_toc.txt| 21 22============================================================================== 23*25.1* Breaking lines 24 25Vim has a number of functions that make dealing with text easier. By default, 26the editor does not perform automatic line breaks. In other words, you have 27to press <Enter> yourself. This is useful when you are writing programs where 28you want to decide where the line ends. It is not so good when you are 29creating documentation and want the text to be at most 70 character wide. 30 If you set the 'textwidth' option, Vim automatically inserts line breaks. 31Suppose, for example, that you want a very narrow column of only 30 32characters. You need to execute the following command: > 33 34 :set textwidth=30 35 36Now you start typing (ruler added): 37 38 1 2 3 39 12345678901234567890123456789012345 40 I taught programming for a whi ~ 41 42If you type "l" next, this makes the line longer than the 30-character limit. 43When Vim sees this, it inserts a line break and you get the following: 44 45 1 2 3 46 12345678901234567890123456789012345 47 I taught programming for a ~ 48 whil ~ 49 50Continuing on, you can type in the rest of the paragraph: 51 52 1 2 3 53 12345678901234567890123456789012345 54 I taught programming for a ~ 55 while. One time, I was stopped ~ 56 by the Fort Worth police, ~ 57 because my homework was too ~ 58 hard. True story. ~ 59 60You do not have to type newlines; Vim puts them in automatically. 61 62 Note: 63 The 'wrap' option makes Vim display lines with a line break, but this 64 doesn't insert a line break in the file. 65 66 67REFORMATTING 68 69The Vim editor is not a word processor. In a word processor, if you delete 70something at the beginning of the paragraph, the line breaks are reworked. In 71Vim they are not; so if you delete the word "programming" from the first line, 72all you get is a short line: 73 74 1 2 3 75 12345678901234567890123456789012345 76 I taught for a ~ 77 while. One time, I was stopped ~ 78 by the Fort Worth police, ~ 79 because my homework was too ~ 80 hard. True story. ~ 81 82This does not look good. To get the paragraph into shape you use the "gq" 83operator. 84 Let's first use this with a Visual selection. Starting from the first 85line, type: > 86 87 v4jgq 88 89"v" to start Visual mode, "4j' to move to the end of the paragraph and then 90the "gq" operator. The result is: 91 92 1 2 3 93 12345678901234567890123456789012345 94 I taught for a while. One ~ 95 time, I was stopped by the ~ 96 Fort Worth police, because my ~ 97 homework was too hard. True ~ 98 story. ~ 99 100Note: there is a way to do automatic formatting for specific types of text 101layouts, see |auto-format|. 102 103Since "gq" is an operator, you can use one of the three ways to select the 104text it works on: With Visual mode, with a movement and with a text object. 105 The example above could also be done with "gq4j". That's less typing, but 106you have to know the line count. A more useful motion command is "}". This 107moves to the end of a paragraph. Thus "gq}" formats from the cursor to the 108end of the current paragraph. 109 A very useful text object to use with "gq" is the paragraph. Try this: > 110 111 gqap 112 113"ap" stands for "a-paragraph". This formats the text of one paragraph 114(separated by empty lines). Also the part before the cursor. 115 If you have your paragraphs separated by empty lines, you can format the 116whole file by typing this: > 117 118 gggqG 119 120"gg" to move to the first line, "gqG" to format until the last line. 121 Warning: If your paragraphs are not properly separated, they will be joined 122together. A common mistake is to have a line with a space or tab. That's a 123blank line, but not an empty line. 124 125Vim is able to format more than just plain text. See |fo-table| for how to 126change this. See the 'joinspaces' option to change the number of spaces used 127after a full stop. 128 It is possible to use an external program for formatting. This is useful 129if your text can't be properly formatted with Vim's builtin command. See the 130'formatprg' option. 131 132============================================================================== 133*25.2* Aligning text 134 135To center a range of lines, use the following command: > 136 137 :{range}center [width] 138 139{range} is the usual command-line range. [width] is an optional line width to 140use for centering. If [width] is not specified, it defaults to the value of 141'textwidth'. (If 'textwidth' is 0, the default is 80.) 142 For example: > 143 144 :1,5center 40 145 146results in the following: 147 148 I taught for a while. One ~ 149 time, I was stopped by the ~ 150 Fort Worth police, because my ~ 151 homework was too hard. True ~ 152 story. ~ 153 154 155RIGHT ALIGNMENT 156 157Similarly, the ":right" command right-justifies the text: > 158 159 :1,5right 37 160 161gives this result: 162 163 I taught for a while. One ~ 164 time, I was stopped by the ~ 165 Fort Worth police, because my ~ 166 homework was too hard. True ~ 167 story. ~ 168 169LEFT ALIGNMENT 170 171Finally there is this command: > 172 173 :{range}left [margin] 174 175Unlike ":center" and ":right", however, the argument to ":left" is not the 176length of the line. Instead it is the left margin. If it is omitted, the 177text will be put against the left side of the screen (using a zero margin 178would do the same). If it is 5, the text will be indented 5 spaces. For 179example, use these commands: > 180 181 :1left 5 182 :2,5left 183 184This results in the following: 185 186 I taught for a while. One ~ 187 time, I was stopped by the ~ 188 Fort Worth police, because my ~ 189 homework was too hard. True ~ 190 story. ~ 191 192 193JUSTIFYING TEXT 194 195Vim has no built-in way of justifying text. However, there is a neat macro 196package that does the job. To use this package, execute the following 197command: > 198 199 :runtime macros/justify.vim 200 201This Vim script file defines a new visual command "_j". To justify a block of 202text, highlight the text in Visual mode and then execute "_j". 203 Look in the file for more explanations. To go there, do "gf" on this name: 204$VIMRUNTIME/macros/justify.vim. 205 206An alternative is to filter the text through an external program. Example: > 207 208 :%!fmt 209 210============================================================================== 211*25.3* Indents and tabs 212 213Indents can be used to make text stand out from the rest. The example texts 214in this manual, for example, are indented by eight spaces or a tab. You would 215normally enter this by typing a tab at the start of each line. Take this 216text: 217 the first line ~ 218 the second line ~ 219 220This is entered by typing a tab, some text, <Enter>, tab and more text. 221 The 'autoindent' option inserts indents automatically: > 222 223 :set autoindent 224 225When a new line is started it gets the same indent as the previous line. In 226the above example, the tab after the <Enter> is not needed anymore. 227 228 229INCREASING INDENT 230 231To increase the amount of indent in a line, use the ">" operator. Often this 232is used as ">>", which adds indent to the current line. 233 The amount of indent added is specified with the 'shiftwidth' option. The 234default value is 8. To make ">>" insert four spaces worth of indent, for 235example, type this: > 236 237 :set shiftwidth=4 238 239When used on the second line of the example text, this is what you get: 240 241 the first line ~ 242 the second line ~ 243 244"4>>" will increase the indent of four lines. 245 246 247TABSTOP 248 249If you want to make indents a multiple of 4, you set 'shiftwidth' to 4. But 250when pressing a <Tab> you still get 8 spaces worth of indent. To change this, 251set the 'softtabstop' option: > 252 253 :set softtabstop=4 254 255This will make the <Tab> key insert 4 spaces worth of indent. If there are 256already four spaces, a <Tab> character is used (saving seven characters in the 257file). (If you always want spaces and no tab characters, set the 'expandtab' 258option.) 259 260 Note: 261 You could set the 'tabstop' option to 4. However, if you edit the 262 file another time, with 'tabstop' set to the default value of 8, it 263 will look wrong. In other programs and when printing the indent will 264 also be wrong. Therefore it is recommended to keep 'tabstop' at eight 265 all the time. That's the standard value everywhere. 266 267 268CHANGING TABS 269 270You edit a file which was written with a tabstop of 3. In Vim it looks ugly, 271because it uses the normal tabstop value of 8. You can fix this by setting 272'tabstop' to 3. But you have to do this every time you edit this file. 273 Vim can change the use of tabstops in your file. First, set 'tabstop' to 274make the indents look good, then use the ":retab" command: > 275 276 :set tabstop=3 277 :retab 8 278 279The ":retab" command will change 'tabstop' to 8, while changing the text such 280that it looks the same. It changes spans of white space into tabs and spaces 281for this. You can now write the file. Next time you edit it the indents will 282be right without setting an option. 283 Warning: When using ":retab" on a program, it may change white space inside 284a string constant. Therefore it's a good habit to use "\t" instead of a 285real tab. 286 287============================================================================== 288*25.4* Dealing with long lines 289 290Sometimes you will be editing a file that is wider than the number of columns 291in the window. When that occurs, Vim wraps the lines so that everything fits 292on the screen. 293 If you switch the 'wrap' option off, each line in the file shows up as one 294line on the screen. Then the ends of the long lines disappear off the screen 295to the right. 296 When you move the cursor to a character that can't be seen, Vim will scroll 297the text to show it. This is like moving a viewport over the text in the 298horizontal direction. 299 By default, Vim does not display a horizontal scrollbar in the GUI. If you 300want to enable one, use the following command: > 301 302 :set guioptions+=b 303 304One horizontal scrollbar will appear at the bottom of the Vim window. 305 306If you don't have a scrollbar or don't want to use it, use these commands to 307scroll the text. The cursor will stay in the same place, but it's moved back 308into the visible text if necessary. 309 310 zh scroll right 311 4zh scroll four characters right 312 zH scroll half a window width right 313 ze scroll right to put the cursor at the end 314 zl scroll left 315 4zl scroll four characters left 316 zL scroll half a window width left 317 zs scroll left to put the cursor at the start 318 319Let's attempt to show this with one line of text. The cursor is on the "w" of 320"which". The "current window" above the line indicates the text that is 321currently visible. The "window"s below the text indicate the text that is 322visible after the command left of it. 323 324 |<-- current window -->| 325 some long text, part of which is visible in the window ~ 326 ze |<-- window -->| 327 zH |<-- window -->| 328 4zh |<-- window -->| 329 zh |<-- window -->| 330 zl |<-- window -->| 331 4zl |<-- window -->| 332 zL |<-- window -->| 333 zs |<-- window -->| 334 335 336MOVING WITH WRAP OFF 337 338When 'wrap' is off and the text has scrolled horizontally, you can use the 339following commands to move the cursor to a character you can see. Thus text 340left and right of the window is ignored. These never cause the text to 341scroll: 342 343 g0 to first visible character in this line 344 g^ to first non-blank visible character in this line 345 gm to middle of this line 346 g$ to last visible character in this line 347 348 |<-- window -->| 349 some long text, part of which is visible ~ 350 g0 g^ gm g$ 351 352 353BREAKING AT WORDS *edit-no-break* 354 355When preparing text for use by another program, you might have to make 356paragraphs without a line break. A disadvantage of using 'nowrap' is that you 357can't see the whole sentence you are working on. When 'wrap' is on, words are 358broken halfway, which makes them hard to read. 359 A good solution for editing this kind of paragraph is setting the 360'linebreak' option. Vim then breaks lines at an appropriate place when 361displaying the line. The text in the file remains unchanged. 362 Without 'linebreak' text might look like this: 363 364 +---------------------------------+ 365 |letter generation program for a b| 366 |ank. They wanted to send out a s| 367 |pecial, personalized letter to th| 368 |eir richest 1000 customers. Unfo| 369 |rtunately for the programmer, he | 370 +---------------------------------+ 371After: > 372 373 :set linebreak 374 375it looks like this: 376 377 +---------------------------------+ 378 |letter generation program for a | 379 |bank. They wanted to send out a | 380 |special, personalized letter to | 381 |their richest 1000 customers. | 382 |Unfortunately for the programmer,| 383 +---------------------------------+ 384 385Related options: 386'breakat' specifies the characters where a break can be inserted. 387'showbreak' specifies a string to show at the start of broken line. 388Set 'textwidth' to zero to avoid a paragraph to be split. 389 390 391MOVING BY VISIBLE LINES 392 393The "j" and "k" commands move to the next and previous lines. When used on 394a long line, this means moving a lot of screen lines at once. 395 To move only one screen line, use the "gj" and "gk" commands. When a line 396doesn't wrap they do the same as "j" and "k". When the line does wrap, they 397move to a character displayed one line below or above. 398 You might like to use these mappings, which bind these movement commands to 399the cursor keys: > 400 401 :map <Up> gk 402 :map <Down> gj 403 404 405TURNING A PARAGRAPH INTO ONE LINE 406 407If you want to import text into a program like MS-Word, each paragraph should 408be a single line. If your paragraphs are currently separated with empty 409lines, this is how you turn each paragraph into a single line: > 410 411 :g/./,/^$/join 412 413That looks complicated. Let's break it up in pieces: 414 415 :g/./ A ":global" command that finds all lines that contain 416 at least one character. 417 ,/^$/ A range, starting from the current line (the non-empty 418 line) until an empty line. 419 join The ":join" command joins the range of lines together 420 into one line. 421 422Starting with this text, containing eight lines broken at column 30: 423 424 +----------------------------------+ 425 |A letter generation program | 426 |for a bank. They wanted to | 427 |send out a special, | 428 |personalized letter. | 429 | | 430 |To their richest 1000 | 431 |customers. Unfortunately for | 432 |the programmer, | 433 +----------------------------------+ 434 435You end up with two lines: 436 437 +----------------------------------+ 438 |A letter generation program for a | 439 |bank. They wanted to send out a s| 440 |pecial, personalized letter. | 441 |To their richest 1000 customers. | 442 |Unfortunately for the programmer, | 443 +----------------------------------+ 444 445Note that this doesn't work when the separating line is blank but not empty; 446when it contains spaces and/or tabs. This command does work with blank lines: 447> 448 :g/\S/,/^\s*$/join 449 450This still requires a blank or empty line at the end of the file for the last 451paragraph to be joined. 452 453============================================================================== 454*25.5* Editing tables 455 456Suppose you are editing a table with four columns: 457 458 nice table test 1 test 2 test 3 ~ 459 input A 0.534 ~ 460 input B 0.913 ~ 461 462You need to enter numbers in the third column. You could move to the second 463line, use "A", enter a lot of spaces and type the text. 464 For this kind of editing there is a special option: > 465 466 set virtualedit=all 467 468Now you can move the cursor to positions where there isn't any text. This is 469called "virtual space". Editing a table is a lot easier this way. 470 Move the cursor by searching for the header of the last column: > 471 472 /test 3 473 474Now press "j" and you are right where you can enter the value for "input A". 475Typing "0.693" results in: 476 477 nice table test 1 test 2 test 3 ~ 478 input A 0.534 0.693 ~ 479 input B 0.913 ~ 480 481Vim has automatically filled the gap in front of the new text for you. Now, 482to enter the next field in this column use "Bj". "B" moves back to the start 483of a white space separated word. Then "j" moves to the place where the next 484field can be entered. 485 486 Note: 487 You can move the cursor anywhere in the display, also beyond the end 488 of a line. But Vim will not insert spaces there, until you insert a 489 character in that position. 490 491 492COPYING A COLUMN 493 494You want to add a column, which should be a copy of the third column and 495placed before the "test 1" column. Do this in seven steps: 4961. Move the cursor to the left upper corner of this column, e.g., with 497 "/test 3". 4982. Press CTRL-V to start blockwise Visual mode. 4993. Move the cursor down two lines with "2j". You are now in "virtual space": 500 the "input B" line of the "test 3" column. 5014. Move the cursor right, to include the whole column in the selection, plus 502 the space that you want between the columns. "9l" should do it. 5035. Yank the selected rectangle with "y". 5046. Move the cursor to "test 1", where the new column must be placed. 5057. Press "P". 506 507The result should be: 508 509 nice table test 3 test 1 test 2 test 3 ~ 510 input A 0.693 0.534 0.693 ~ 511 input B 0.913 ~ 512 513Notice that the whole "test 1" column was shifted right, also the line where 514the "test 3" column didn't have text. 515 516Go back to non-virtual cursor movements with: > 517 518 :set virtualedit= 519 520 521VIRTUAL REPLACE MODE 522 523The disadvantage of using 'virtualedit' is that it "feels" different. You 524can't recognize tabs or spaces beyond the end of line when moving the cursor 525around. Another method can be used: Virtual Replace mode. 526 Suppose you have a line in a table that contains both tabs and other 527characters. Use "rx" on the first tab: 528 529 inp 0.693 0.534 0.693 ~ 530 531 | 532 rx | 533 V 534 535 inpx0.693 0.534 0.693 ~ 536 537The layout is messed up. To avoid that, use the "gr" command: 538 539 inp 0.693 0.534 0.693 ~ 540 541 | 542 grx | 543 V 544 545 inpx 0.693 0.534 0.693 ~ 546 547What happens is that the "gr" command makes sure the new character takes the 548right amount of screen space. Extra spaces or tabs are inserted to fill the 549gap. Thus what actually happens is that a tab is replaced by "x" and then 550blanks added to make the text after it keep its place. In this case a 551tab is inserted. 552 When you need to replace more than one character, you use the "R" command 553to go to Replace mode (see |04.9|). This messes up the layout and replaces 554the wrong characters: 555 556 inp 0 0.534 0.693 ~ 557 558 | 559 R0.786 | 560 V 561 562 inp 0.78634 0.693 ~ 563 564The "gR" command uses Virtual Replace mode. This preserves the layout: 565 566 inp 0 0.534 0.693 ~ 567 568 | 569 gR0.786 | 570 V 571 572 inp 0.786 0.534 0.693 ~ 573 574============================================================================== 575 576Next chapter: |usr_26.txt| Repeating 577 578Copyright: see |manual-copyright| vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: 579