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VIM Block Editing

Selecting blocks of text is one of the more powerful reasons to use an editor such as VIM, it allows the easy removal of a chunk of text in the middle of various lines. This in itself may not seem all that useful but consider a readout where the first column is always junk. With this tip you can easily remove it.

Go to the first character you want to select in the block.

Press Ctrl + q to enter Visual Block mode.

Now, use the 'hjkl' keys to move around instead of the arrow keys or the mouse which will select whole lines rather than just the block.

• H - Left
• I - Down
• J - Up
• L - Right

Now copy or delete as preferred.

(Tested on Vim 6.2 Microsoft Windows)

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