VIM COMMANDS

modes, motions and editing per the Vim 9.1 help — and the grammar that composes them into commands

Built as a memo rather than a table: the thing worth hanging it up for reads across the room, with the full reference in smaller type below it.

Three sizes in one archive — from a sheet on the fridge to a poster on the wall.

Formats: A4 · A3 · A2
What you get: Print-ready PDFs, one per size, with every letterform converted to outlines — nothing to install, nothing to shift.
Subject: code · beginners · reference · study

Every key on this sheet is checked against the Vim 9.1 help (:help) by its documentation tag: motions — motion.txt, editing — change.txt, insert.txt, undo.txt, repeat.txt, modes — visual.txt, cmdline.txt, editing.txt. “"2d3w" deletes six words” is motion.txt verbatim. Checked 2026-08-13.

THE COMMANDS ARE A LANGUAGE, NOT A LIST

2d3w deletes exactly six words: the count before the operator and the count before the motion are multiplied — the help says so verbatim, with this very example. The command reads like a sentence: twice — delete — three words.

That is why nobody learns them as a list: 3 operators × 16 motions on this sheet already make 48 commands, and every motion you learn adds 3 more at once.

On the sheet

Every key on this sheet is checked against the Vim 9.1 help (:help) by its documentation tag: motions — motion.txt, editing — change.txt, insert.txt, undo.txt, repeat.txt, modes — visual.txt, cmdline.txt, editing.txt. “"2d3w" deletes six words” is motion.txt verbatim. Checked 2026-08-13.
Colour carries meaning, but meaning never rests on colour alone — the sheet reads in black and white.
Nothing about how it was made: the sheet carries only what the reader needs.

Printing

Three sizes in the archive: A4 — 210×297 mm, A3 — 297×420 mm, A2 — 420×594 mm.
All text is converted to outlines. No fonts to install, and nothing shifts on another machine.
White background and sparing fills — it prints on a home printer without draining the cartridge.
Margins of at least 10 mm: a home printer cannot print to the edge.
No stroke thinner than 0.3 mm, so nothing disappears in print.

Why the numbers can be trusted. Every countable number here is computed from data rather than typed in, and the sheet must pass 9 independent checks before it is allowed to build — how many items there are, the order they come in, and the claim in the highlighted box itself. If one fails, there is no file.

VIM COMMANDS

THE COMMANDS ARE A LANGUAGE, NOT A LIST

On the sheet

Printing

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