How do you record a macro to remove trailing whitespace from lines?
qa:s/\s\+$//e\n jq
Record a macro that runs a substitution on the current line to remove trailing spaces, then moves down.
Category: macros
How do you use a macro to reverse the order of words on a line?
qa$bywdw0Pa <Esc>q
Record a macro that yanks the last word, deletes it, pastes it at the beginning of the line.
How do you use a macro to prepend text from a register to each line?
qaI<C-r>a<Esc>jq
Record a macro that inserts the contents of register a at the start of each line using a in insert mode, then moves down.
How do you use a macro to wrap CSV fields in quotes?
qaf,i"<Esc>la"<Esc>q
Record a macro that finds the next comma, inserts a quote before it, moves past the comma, and inserts a quote after.
How do you record a macro to remove comment lines starting with #?
qa/^#\nddq
Record a macro that finds lines starting with # and deletes them.
How do you record a macro to join every other line pair?
qaJjq
Record a macro that joins the current line with the next using J, then moves down one line with j.
How do you use a macro to number each paragraph in a document?
qa{jI## Section \n<Esc>}q
Record a macro that goes to the start of each paragraph and inserts a section header.
How do you run a macro a specific number of times in Vim?
50@a
Prefix the macro playback command with a count.
How do you use a macro to create an incrementing numbered list in Vim?
qaYp<C-a>q
Record a macro that yanks the current line, pastes it below, and increments the number with .
How do you record a macro to increase indentation of a code block?
qaI <Esc>jq
Record a macro that inserts two spaces at the beginning of the line and moves down.
How do you record a macro that inserts a date stamp?
qaA <C-r>=strftime('%Y-%m-%d')\n<Esc>jq
Record a macro that appends a date stamp using the expression register with strftime().
How do you record a macro to extract a specific column from tabular data?
qa0f dwi\n<Esc>jq
Extract columns by recording a macro that navigates to the desired field and deletes or yanks it.
How do you record a macro to extract URLs from a file?
qa/https\?:\/\/\nyiW:put\nq
Record a macro that searches for URLs, yanks the URL, and puts it at the end of the file.
How do you record a macro to format phone numbers with dashes?
qa0f lll i-<Esc>llli-<Esc>jq
Record a macro that positions the cursor in a 10-digit number and inserts dashes at positions 3 and 6 to create the format xxx-xxx-xxxx.
How do you use a macro with the expression register to generate a number sequence?
:let i=1\nqao<C-r>=i\n<Esc>:let i+=1\nq
Use a counter variable with the expression register inside a macro.
How do you record a macro that duplicates a line and modifies the copy?
qayyp:s/old/new/\nq
Record a macro that yanks and pastes the current line, then substitutes text on the new line.
How do you edit a previously recorded macro in Vim?
:let @a='<C-r>a'
Paste the macro register contents with :let @a=' followed by a to insert the current contents, edit them, and close the quote.
How do you record a macro to enclose each word in parentheses?
qaciwi(<C-r>")<Esc>wq
Record a macro that changes the inner word, types an opening paren, pastes the original word, types a closing paren, and moves to the next word.
How do you record a macro to delete all blank lines in Vim?
qa/^$/\ndd@aq
Record a macro that searches for blank lines, deletes them, and recurses.
How do you use a macro to delete the first word of every line?
qa0dwjq
Record a macro that goes to the start of line with 0, deletes the first word with dw, and moves down with j.