How to select text in Vim (Visual mode)

The pineapple has run out, and the specials board still promises extra pineapple on the al pastor burrito. Those three words have to go, and you'd like to see exactly what's going before it goes. The cursor is on the space after burrito.

v starts Visual mode, and -- VISUAL -- shows at the bottom. From then on every move stretches a highlight from where you pressed v to the cursor. e jumps to the end of the word ahead, so each press takes in one more word. The next command you give acts on whatever is highlighted.

Any move works while you select, so w, b, j and $ all stretch the highlight. The selection always includes the character under the cursor, though. v then w reaches one letter into the next word, which is why e is the better way to stop at the end of one.

For the usual shapes there's a shortcut. After v, i means "inside" rather than Insert mode, and the letter after it names the shape. viw selects the word under the cursor from anywhere in it, vi" what's between the quotes around the cursor, and vip the paragraph, meaning the lines between two blank ones. Swap i for a to take the edges as well. va" includes the quotes, and vap includes the blank line after the paragraph.

Once the text is highlighted, the next key says what happens to it, and Visual mode ends. d deletes it, y copies it, and c deletes it and leaves you typing in its place. p swaps it for whatever you copied last. > and < indent and unindent every line the selection touches. U turns the letters into capitals, u into small letters, and ~ flips each one.

: opens the command line with :'<,'> already typed, which means "the lines the selection is on". Type a command after it, such as s/old/new/g, and it runs on those lines only. It always takes whole lines, even when you selected a single word.

You've highlighted chocolate dip and then notice the in in front of it should go too. Moving the cursor now only moves the end it's on, so b would shrink the selection from the right. Press o first. The cursor jumps to the start of the highlight, and b stretches it back over in. Press o again to return to the end you started from.

gv brings back the last selection, the same characters as before. Use it after a stray Esc, or after U when you want to do something more to the same words.

v picks characters, which suits words and phrases. For whole lines, start with V instead. The highlight then covers every line the cursor passes over, wherever on the line it is, and Select lines has more on that. If you're halfway through a v selection, pressing V turns it into whole lines.

Ctrl-v (hold Ctrl, press v) selects a rectangle, the same columns on several lines. It's how you type the same thing at the start of every line, and Visual Block mode shows how. For everything in the file at once, ggVG does it, and Select all has the shortcuts that skip the selection.