How do I quickly change an entire sentence in Vim?

Explanation

The cis command deletes the entire sentence under the cursor and drops you into insert mode, ready to type a replacement. It uses Vim's built-in sentence text object, which understands punctuation-based sentence boundaries — a feature most Vim users never discover.

How it works

• c is the change operator (delete and enter insert mode)
• is is the "inner sentence" text object
• Vim defines a sentence as text ending with ., !, or ? followed by whitespace or end-of-line
• is selects the sentence content without trailing whitespace, while as ("a sentence") includes the trailing whitespace

Example

Given the text with the cursor anywhere on the second sentence:

Vim is powerful. It has many features. Learn them all.

Pressing cis deletes It has many features and enters insert mode:

Vim is powerful. |. Learn them all.

Type The dot command is essential and press <Esc>:

Vim is powerful. The dot command is essential. Learn them all.

Tips

• Use das to delete a sentence and the trailing whitespace, cleaning up spacing automatically
• dis deletes the sentence without entering insert mode
• yis yanks (copies) the current sentence
• vis visually selects the sentence so you can see what will be affected before acting
• The ) and ( motions move forward and backward by sentence — useful for navigating prose
• Sentence text objects work best with properly punctuated text; they may behave unexpectedly with code that uses dots in identifiers like object.method
• Pair with . to repeat: after cis, type your replacement, press <Esc>, navigate to another sentence, and press . to replace it the same way