How do I scroll a full page up or down in Vim?

Explanation

How it works

Vim provides two commands for scrolling by an entire screen (page) at a time:

• Ctrl-F (Forward) scrolls the view one full page down through the file. The cursor moves along with the screen.
• Ctrl-B (Backward) scrolls the view one full page up through the file.

These are distinct from Ctrl-D and Ctrl-U, which scroll by half a page. When you need to move quickly through a large file, full-page scrolling covers twice the distance per keystroke.

After scrolling, the cursor is placed on the first non-blank character of the new top line (for Ctrl-F) or the new bottom line (for Ctrl-B). Vim keeps a two-line overlap between pages so you do not lose your reading context.

Example

Suppose you are reading through a 2000-line log file and want to scan for a particular entry:

1. Press Ctrl-F to jump forward by a full page. Each press moves you roughly one screenful of lines.
2. Press Ctrl-B to go back one page if you overshot.
3. Use a count for faster movement: 5Ctrl-F scrolls forward five full pages at once.

Comparison with half-page scrolling

For reading code or documentation, half-page scrolling often feels more natural because it preserves more context. But for quickly skipping through large sections, full-page scrolling is the faster choice.