How to Copy Text in Vi Editor?

Below are the Copy Command for Vi represented in tabular format:

1. Move the Cursor:

When you open a file in Vi, you’ll see a cursor, which is usually a blinking vertical line or block. This cursor indicates your current position in the file. To copy text, you need to move the cursor to the beginning of the text you want to copy. You can move the cursor using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Press the arrow keys until the cursor is positioned at the start of the text you want to copy.

2. Enter Visual Mode:

Once the cursor is in the right place, you need to enter “visual mode”. Think of visual mode as a way to highlight or select text. To enter visual mode, simply press the ‘v’ key on your keyboard. When you do this, you’ll notice that the text changes color or gets highlighted. This indicates that you’re now in visual mode and can start selecting text.

3. Highlight the Text:

With the cursor in visual mode, you can now use the arrow keys to highlight the desired text. Move the cursor using the arrow keys while holding down the ‘Shift’ key. As you move the cursor, you’ll see that the text gets selected or highlighted. Keep moving the cursor until you’ve selected all the text you want to copy.

4. Copy the Text:

Once you’ve highlighted the text you want to copy, it’s time to actually copy it. To do this, simply press the ‘y’ key on your keyboard. ‘y’ stands for “yank”, which is another way of saying “copy” in Vi. When you press ‘y’, Vi will copy the selected text into its internal clipboard, ready to be pasted elsewhere.

Vi is a really strong text editor that you can use on Unix and Linux computers. It can do a lot of things, like copying, cutting, and pasting text. Even though these actions might seem hard at first, once you get the hang of them, they can make you much faster when you’re working with text files. In this guide, we’ll talk about how to copy, cut, and paste text in Vi, and we’ll explain it clearly with lots of examples.