The Vim Text Editor: How and Why to Use it as a Writing Tool

Many a programmer will tell you that Vim (Vi Improved) is one of the best text editors around. But why should we writers use a programmer's tool - and specifically Vim - for our jobs? After all, isn't that what full-fledged word processors are for? There are a couple of answers to that question.

A plain text editor allows you to focus on content, not formatting. When you're in the middle of a creative spurt, the last thing you need to be thinking about is margins, page numbers, and the like. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, like certain long documents and scholarly writing. For many of us that focus on short stories, articles, blog posts, or even novels there's no reason to be fiddling with formatting when we could be concentrating on quality writing. There are plenty of great tools to format your text after you're done editing.

Vim itself has specific features that lend itself to a more efficient writing process--namely its extensive key combinations. Without ever taking your hands off the keyboard, you can delete lines, copy, paste, rearrange text, spell check your work, search and replace...you can navigate your document without ever moving from the home row. Another feature that I find particularly useful is the ability to easily change the color scheme of the application. I find that typing with light text on a darker background is much easier on my eyes than the traditional black on white.

Remember that Vim comes set up for editing code, not the usual blocks of the text that writers deal with. In order to make navigation easier and text more readable on your screen, you'll need to make a few changes to your configuration, which is done by editing a special text file (.vimrc on Linux--check the documentation for other platforms). Copy and paste the following lines into your .vimrc file:

" Nice wrapping behavior
nnoremap j gj
nnoremap k gk
vnoremap j gj
vnoremap k gk
nnoremap gj
nnoremap gk
vnoremap gj
vnoremap gk
inoremap gj
inoremap gk
set linebreak

This allows for familiar word-wrap behavior, as well as easy navigation through paragraphs. Of course, if you've never used Vim before all this may seem a bit intimidating. Don't let editing a configuration file scare you! As you use the application, you'll become more familiar with the unique way it looks at editing text, and if you keep at it, I don't think you'll look back.

Vim is a cross-platform application as well, so you can easily install and use it on Mac, Windows, or Linux. Not only that, but many scripts are available to extend Vim's functionality and customize it perfectly to your needs. There are outlining tools, to-do list managers, and more!