I've read this How to make vim paste from (and copy to) system's clipboard? and I know what the hotkeys are. But I'm unable to execute any of those commands. For example, what exactly should I press to call
"* or "+? In which mode also? I've tried different things and none of them worked.
I am assuming you've double-checked that :echo has('clipboard') returns 1. If it returns 0, you're out of luck since vim isn't compiled with access to the system clipboard.
If you have clipboard powers, then yanking and pasting inside of vim is done with pressing just the letter y and the letter p, in normal mode. Start doing this first, to confirm that you can yank and paste inside of vim. For instance, yank a line: yy and paste it p.
Next, confirm that you can yank inside of vim to the system clipboard with "*y. (That means pressing the double-quote (shift-'), then an asterix (shift-8), then the letter y, all in quick-ish succession. Toggle over to another app and paste with the regular control-V. (You may be able to look at the bottom left of status line to see what you are literally typing, which might help).
If that works, then the clipboard functionality is "good to go." If it doesn't you might need to tweak your .vimrc to get things working. Try setting the clipboard to unnamed: set clipboard=unnamed and retest step 3 again.
Vim always manages to clip off at least of couple of characters when I copy something from a text file, such as a public rsa key for example.
Generally, I open a text file in my computer, highlight the text, copy it to my clipboard. I go into my terminal (with Vim already open) and then:
i (for insert)
ctrl+shift+v
Am I doing something wrong?
I've double checked, and triple checked, this, and I am absolutely sure that I highlighted all of the text that I needed to copy. Other times it works fine. There does not seem to be any consistency in regards to when it happens.
Anyone experience this?
This usually happens because something in the pasted text triggers a key mapping unexpectedly. This is what paste mode is for.
Do this before pasting:
:set paste
And turn it off after:
:set nopaste
This can be annoying to type frequently, so there is a way to map it to a key combination. I use ,p for this, and have this in my .vimrc:
set pastetoggle=,p
(Yes, I use an actual comma here, not <Leader>. That's because <Leader> won't work here, as this isn't technically a mapping.)
This is a toggle, so you can use it to turn the mode on and off. It works in both normal mode and insert mode.
You do want to turn it off after the paste. Since paste mode disables your insert mappings, you don't want to leave it on all the time.
You can read more about the paste option with :help 'paste.
The annoyance of toggling to and form paste mode can be avoided by using "+p or "*p. (You're putting the quoteplus register).
More often than not, I prefer "+P, since this leaves my cursor at the end of properly formatted put. see :help quoteplus for details. So the whole workflow is:
outside of vim: copy to clipboard
inside of vim: "+P
In vim I frequently end up undoing more than I want to after a messed up paste from the system clipboard. Is there a better way?
To reproduce:
Open iTerm # or terminal
vi # open vim
i # enter insert mode
type some stuff
Cmd-V # paste the contents of the OS X clipboard
The paste is a mess because I haven't :set paste. So
Esc # enter command mode
u # undo
but that undoes my typing as well as my paste.
Is there a different undo I can use? Apart from remembering to :set paste before pasting is there a better way to do this in general?
This is not the answer you're looking for, but you really should stop using vim as a non-modal editor. If you want to paste then return to normal mode and use vim's paste commands.
Assuming that you have a vim version with clipboard access this should do the trick "+p. You can also facilitate this by setting your unnamed register to be the + (or *) register, such that pasting from clipboard becomes a simple p.
The following question has a great answer that includes all this information How to make vim paste from (and copy to) system's clipboard?.
I'm not sure there's anything you can do after the fact, but one solution is to hit Ctrl-G u in insert mode just before you paste. This breaks the undo block into two separate blocks - so the paste will be remembered as a separate undoable action.
Granted if you have to remember to do this, you might as well just use :set paste instead - but on the upside it's fewer keystrokes and you don't have to go to command mode first.
Take a look at this plugin, it can auto run :set paste! when you use Cmd-V(or Ctrl-V) to paste some text. And leave paste mode when you finished.
The following mappings create an additional undo point (via :help i_CTRL-G_u) before pasting in insert mode. This way, you can undo the paste separately.
inoremap <C-r> <C-g>u<C-r>
inoremap <C-v> <C-g>u<C-v>
Actually the solution is you have to go to command mode(e.g. Esc) first and re-enter the insert mode, but it only works if I type manually but it seems "randomly" stop working if I test it in ~/.vimrc. Google doesn't help at all.
I spends a lot of time try to fix this issue and I just figure out the reason in my case:
Don't map the paste key same with the terminal existing paste key
e.g. Ctrl+Shift+V will paste in my Konsole terminal, but if I assign this key <C-S-v> in ~/.vimrc, the "undo for only single paste instead of multiple pastes" will not working.
In my case, I have to use <C-v> instead of <C-S-v>:
inoremap <C-v> <Esc>"+pi<Esc>i<Right><Right>
Your case may difference, but the point is same: don't assign the same paste key conflicts with existing terminal emulator key.
I've 100% proved this conclusion by set my terminal paste key to Ctrl+V and now <C-v> stop working but <C-S-v> working.
Note also that the vim is too sensitive and strange. I figure out I have to use i and then 2 Right keys manually to make it works in the correct cursor position, that's means I have to put i and 2 Right keys in the ~/.vimrc too. Your case might difference, but the point is same, ensure the keys+order in ~/.vimrc 100% match with what you type manually.
Can one put control characters into a text so that when I copy and paste it in Vim it exits insert mode and does something nasty in command mode?
The short answer seems to be "yes". I was able to put the following in my clipboard:
hello<Escape>:!date<CR>
and when I pasted it into vim while in insert mode hello was typed and then the shell opened up and the date command was run.
Obviously if I can run the date command in the shell I can do much more nasty stuff.
To get that string in my paste buffer I opened vim and typed hello<C-V><Esc>:!date<C-V><Enter>. I then had to save that file, open it with Kate and copy the contents that way (copying from vim didn't preserve the control characters).
That depends on the environment, and the Vim command used.
Graphical GVIM can differentiate pastes from typed keys, but in the terminal, this is not (generally) possible. That's why Vim has the 'paste' and 'pastetoggle' options, to tell Vim what is expected. Despite that, if the character stream contains a key like <Esc> that switches modes, Vim will do so.
Instead of pushing text into Vim, it is safer to pull with Vim's put command: "*p. There, special characters like <Esc> will be inserted literally into the buffer; Vim won't switch modes here. The only Vim command that interprets register contents as typed (and therefore is susceptible to mode switch commands) is i_CTRL-R. To avoid that, one should use any of the other command variants, e.g. i_CTRL-R_CTRL-R.
summary
Pull text into Vim instead of pushing it; if you avoid the i_CTRL-R command (or neuter it by remapping it), this is safe. Additionally, the :registers command allows you to inspect all contents before pasting.
I am making the effort to learn Vim.
When I paste code into my document from the clipboard, I get extra spaces at the start of each new line:
line
line
line
I know you can turn off auto indent but I can't get it to work because I have some other settings conflicting or something (which look pretty obvious in my .vimrc but don't seem to matter when I take them out).
How do I turn off auto indenting when I paste code but still have vim auto indent when I am writing code? Here is my .vimrc file:
set expandtab
set tabstop=2
set shiftwidth=2
set autoindent
set smartindent
set bg=dark
set nowrap
Update: Better answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/38258720/62202
To turn off autoindent when you paste code, there's a special "paste" mode.
Type
:set paste
Then paste your code. Note that the text in the tooltip now says -- INSERT (paste) --.
After you pasted your code, turn off the paste-mode, so that auto-indenting when you type works correctly again.
:set nopaste
However, I always found that cumbersome. That's why I map <F3> such that it can switch between paste and nopaste modes while editing the text! I add this to .vimrc
set pastetoggle=<F3>
To avoid undesired effects while pasting, there is an option that needs to be set:
set paste
A useful command to have in your .vimrc is set pastetoggle=<F10> or some other button, to easily toggle between paste and nopaste.
I usually use :r! cat and then paste ( shift + insert ) the content, and CTRL+D.
No need to enable & disable, direct usage.
If you are working locally, you can paste from the system clipboard with the key sequence:
"+p
This is a proper vim command, so no need to worry about entering an insert mode or switching off autoindent first.
Of course if you are working remotely (console over SSH, for example) then this won't work and you should go the :set noai, insert mode, paste into console, leave insertmode, :set ai route as described elsewhere.
While setting the paste mode with paste/nopaste/pastetoggle is perfectly fine, you still have to manually enable paste mode before pasting and disable paste mode after pasting. Being the lazy person that I am, below is the best solution that I've found so far, which automatically toggles the paste mode when you paste.
Here's a little trick that uses terminal's bracketed paste mode to
automatically set/unset Vim's paste mode when you paste. Put following
in your .vimrc:
let &t_SI .= "\<Esc>[?2004h"
let &t_EI .= "\<Esc>[?2004l"
inoremap <special> <expr> <Esc>[200~ XTermPasteBegin()
function! XTermPasteBegin()
set pastetoggle=<Esc>[201~
set paste
return ""
endfunction
Now you can paste without explicitly turning paste mode on/off - it is
handled automatically for you.
Source: Coderwall
Note: This solution doesn't work in WSL (Windows 10 Subsystem for Linux). If anyone has a solution for WSL, please update this answer or add it in the comments.
Tmux If using tmux, then the declarations need to be double escaped. The code for this is also in Coderwall
Mac users can avoid auto formatting by reading directly from the pasteboard with:
:r !pbpaste
Here is a post by someone who figured out how to remap the paste event to automatically turn paste mode on and then back off. Works for me in tmux/iTerm on MacOSX.
I just put set clipboard=unnamed in my .vimrc. That makes the default paste buffer map to X's clipboard.
So, if I mark a bit of text in a terminal, I can simply press p to paste it in vim. Similarly, I can yank things in vim (e.g. YY to yank the current line into the buffer) and middle click in any window to paste it.
I don't know. I find it super convenient.
Add this to your ~/.vimrc and you will only have to press F2 before and after pasting:
set pastetoggle=<F2>
I am a Python user who sometimes copy and paste into Vim. (I switched from Mac to Windows WSL) and this was one of the glitches that bothered me.
If you touch a script.py and then vi script.py, Vi will detect it is a Python script and tried to be helpful, autoindent, paste with extra indents, etc. This won't happen if you don't tell it is a Python script.
However, if that is already happening to you, the default autoindent could be a nightmare when you paste already fully indented code (see the tilted ladder shape below).
I tried three options and here are the results
set paste # works perfect
set noai # still introduced extra whitespace
set noautoindent # still introduced extra whitespace
When working inside a terminal the vim-bracketed-paste vim plugin will automatically handle pastes without needing any keystrokes before or after the paste.
It works by detecting bracketed paste mode which is an escape sequence sent by "modern" x-term compatible terminals like iTerm2, gnome-terminal, and other terminals using libvte. As an added bonus it works also for tmux sessions. I am using it successfully with iTerm2 on a Mac connecting to a linux server and using tmux.
Another answer I did not see until now:
:se paste noai
Stick this in your ~/.vimrc and be happy:
" enables :Paste to just do what you want
command Paste execute 'set noai | insert | set ai'
Edit: on reflection, :r !cat is a far better approach since it's short, semantic, and requires no custom vimrc. Use that instead!
Another way to paste is via <C-r> in insert mode and dropping the contents of the register (here the global register). See: :h i_ctrl-r and h i_CTRL-R_CTRL-O.
From the vim help documentation:
Insert the contents of a register literally and don't auto-indent. Does the same as pasting with the mouse. Does not replace characters! The '.' register (last inserted text) is still inserted as typed.{not in Vi}
So to paste contents into vim without auto indent, use <C-r><C-o>* in most unix systems.
You can add a mapping in the your vimrc inoremap <C-r> <C-r><C-o> so you can paste the contents of the * register normally without the auto indent by using <C-r>*.
Note: this only works if vim is compiled with clipboard.
Although :pastetoggle or :paste and :nopaste should be working fine (if implemented - they are not always as we can see from the discussion) I highly recomment pasting using the direct approach "+p or "*p and reading with "+r or "*r:
Vim has acess to ten types of registers (:help registers) and the questioner is interested in quotestar and quoteplus from section
Selection and drop registers "*, "+ and "~
Use these registers for storing and retrieving the selected text for the GUI.
See quotestar and quoteplus. When the clipboard is not available or not
working, the unnamed register is used instead. For Unix systems the clipboard
is only available when the +xterm_clipboard feature is present. {not in Vi}
Note that there is only a distinction between "* and "+ for X11 systems.
:help x11-selection further clarifies the difference of * and +:
quoteplus quote+
There are three documented X selections: PRIMARY (which is expected to
represent the current visual selection - as in Vim's Visual mode), SECONDARY
(which is ill-defined) and CLIPBOARD (which is expected to be used for
cut, copy and paste operations).
Of these three, Vim uses PRIMARY when reading and writing the "* register
(hence when the X11 selections are available, Vim sets a default value for
'clipboard' of "autoselect"), and CLIPBOARD when reading and writing the "+
register. Vim does not access the SECONDARY selection.
Examples: (assuming the default option values)
Select an URL in Visual mode in Vim. Go to your browser and click the
middle mouse button in the URL text field. The selected text will be
inserted (hopefully!). Note: in Firefox you can set the
middlemouse.contentLoadURL preference to true in about:config, then the
selected URL will be used when pressing middle mouse button in most places in the window.
Select some text in your browser by dragging with the mouse. Go to Vim and
press the middle mouse button: The selected text is inserted.
Select some text in Vim and do "+y. Go to your browser, select some text in
a textfield by dragging with the mouse. Now use the right mouse button and
select "Paste" from the popup menu. The selected text is overwritten by the
text from Vim.
Note that the text in the "+ register remains available when making a Visual
selection, which makes other text available in the "* register. That allows
overwriting selected text.
This works for me ( case for + register, what i use like exchange buffer between aps ):
imap <silent> <S-Insert> <C-O>:set noai<CR><C-R>+<C-O>:set ai<CR>
From vim: ]p
From outside: "*]p or "+]p
This issue has already been answered, but I though I could also add my own solution:
If you simply want to disable auto-indent system wise, for every file type (basically, disable the auto-indent feature completely), you can do the following:
Backup the indent.vim file:
sudo mv /usr/share/vim/vim81/indent.vim /usr/share/vim/vim81/indent.vim.orig
Create a new empty indent.vim file:
sudo touch /usr/share/vim/vim81/indent.vim
If you are on a mac, macvim seems to handle it well without having to toggle paste.
brew install macvim --override-system-vim
Please read this article: Toggle auto-indenting for code paste
Some people like the visual feedback shown in the status line by the following alternative for your vimrc:
nnoremap <F2> :set invpaste paste?<CR>
set pastetoggle=<F2>
set showmode
The fastest way I’m aware of to quickly go to paste-insert mode for a one-shot paste is tpope’s unimpaired, which features yo and yO, presumably mnemonics for “you open”. They’re only documented in his vimdoc, as:
A toggle has not been provided for 'paste' because the typical use case of
wrapping of a solitary insertion is so wasteful: You toggle twice, but
you only paste once (YOPO). Instead, press yo or yO to invoke o or O with
'paste' already set. Leaving insert mode sets 'nopaste' automatically.
Native paste / bracketed paste is the best and simplest way since vim 8 (released in 2016). It even works over ssh! (Bracketed paste works on Linux and Mac, but not Windows Git Bash)
Make sure you have vim 8+ (you don't need the +clipboard or +xterm_clipboard options).
vim --version | head -1
Simply use the OS native paste command (e.g. ctrl+shift+V or cmd+V) in Normal Mode. Do not press i for Insert Mode.
Test
Copy (ctrl+shift+C or cmd+C) the output of this (2 lines with a tab indent) to the system clipboard:
echo -e '\ta\n\tb'
Launch a clean vim 8+ with autoindent:
vim -u NONE --noplugin -c 'set autoindent'
Paste from the system clipboard (ctrl+shift+V or cmd+V) in Normal Mode. Do not press i for Insert Mode. The a and b should be aligned with a single tab indent. You can even do this while ssh-ing to a remote machine (the remote machine will need vim 8+).
Now try the old way, which will autoindent the second line with an extra tab: Press i for Insert Mode. Then paste using ctrl+shift+V or cmd+V. The a and b are misaligned now.
Installing Vim 8
Ubuntu 18.04 - comes with Vim 8 by default.
Ubuntu 16.04 - install from a PPA.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/vim
sudo apt update
sudo apt install vim
Mac: brew install vim
The following vim plugin handles that automatically through its "Bracketed Paste" mode: https://github.com/wincent/terminus
Sets up "Bracketed Paste" mode, which means you can forget about manually setting the 'paste' option and simply go ahead and paste in any mode.
Sadly I found the vim plugin mentioned not to be working with iTerm2 3.0.15 (to be fair I don't know if this broke on older versions) - but I found this hack instead.
Map command-p to do the paste and using iTerm2 vim keys. Obviously this only works for iTerm2.
How it works. I use "jk" to enter escape mode so you will also need:
:inoremap jk
in your .vimrc.
Then it just invokes P to enter paste mode, "+p to paste from the clipboard and then P to disable paste mode. hth.
If you use the vim above v8.2, you can check with :help tmux-integration.
If you experience issues when running Vim inside tmux, here are a few hints.
You can comment-out parts if something doesn't work (it may depend on the
terminal that tmux is running in):
if !has('gui_running') && &term =~ '^\%(screen\|tmux\)'
" Better mouse support, see :help 'ttymouse'
set ttymouse=sgr
" Enable true colors, see :help xterm-true-color
let &termguicolors = v:true
let &t_8f = "\<Esc>[38;2;%lu;%lu;%lum"
let &t_8b = "\<Esc>[48;2;%lu;%lu;%lum"
" Enable bracketed paste mode, see :help xterm-bracketed-paste
let &t_BE = "\<Esc>[?2004h"
let &t_BD = "\<Esc>[?2004l"
let &t_PS = "\<Esc>[200~"
let &t_PE = "\<Esc>[201~"
" Enable focus event tracking, see :help xterm-focus-event
let &t_fe = "\<Esc>[?1004h"
let &t_fd = "\<Esc>[?1004l"
" Enable modified arrow keys, see :help xterm-modifier-keys
execute "silent! set <xUp>=\<Esc>[#;*A"
execute "silent! set <xDown>=\<Esc>[#;*B"
execute "silent! set <xRight>=\<Esc>[#;*C"
execute "silent! set <xLeft>=\<Esc>[#;*D"
endif