The Vim pyramid

A visualization of motion commands of the Vim text editor in the shape of a pyramid. Vim's multitude of commands are kind of a language of its own, but memorizing at least some of them is a huge help for efficient text processing. The following Vim command pyramid can be printed on a single sheet of paper and serve as a memorization aid at your desk when learning Vim.

Vim motion commands

gg top

Ctrl+b previous screen¹

[] end of previous C function

[* or [/ beginning of previous C comment

[[ beginning of C function

{ previous paragraph

( previous sentence

k previous line

0 beginning of line

^ first non-blank character

F{char} to previous {char} character

T{char} till previous {char} character

gE end of previous WORD²

B previous WORD²

ge end of previous word²

b previous word²

h previous character

l next character

e end of word²

w next word²

E end of WORD²

W next WORD²

t{char} till next {char} character

f{char} to next {char} character

g_ last non-blank character

$ end of line

j next line

) next sentence

} next paragraph

][ end of C function

]* or ]/ end of next C comment³

]] beginning of next C function

Ctrl+f next screen¹

G bottom

also show commands related to C programming

¹ Technically not a motion command, but also moves the cursor.

² Assuming that cursor is at the middle of a word. Order differs if cursor is on first/last character.

³ Assuming multiline comments on top of each function.

Note that there are additional motion commands not shown in the pyramid, for example:

To jump to a specific line number (e.g. 42), type 42G.
You can type H, M, and L to get to the first, middle or last line currently visible on screen, respectively.
+ and - work like j and k, but they move to the first non-blank character of the line.
The f, t, F, and T commands can be repeated using ;, or in the opposite direction using ,.
% moves to matching paranthesis, or C comment, or C preprocessor conditional.
When programming in C, there is also [# and ]# to move to the beginning, or end of a preprocessor block, respectively.
When programming in Java or similar object-oriented languages, there are [M and [m to move to the end of previous Java method, and the beginning of Java method, respectively, as well as, ]M and ]m to move the end of Java method, and beginning of next Java method, respectively. These must not be confused with mark commands which also use the m key.
When lines wrap (i.e. the wrap option is set and there are lines longer than one screen width in the document), the additional commands g0, g^, gm, and gM are available.

You can find more information about these commands in the motion.txt chapter of the official Vim manual. Run the :h motion.txt command in Vim to open the chapter.

Side-by-side comparison

A side-by-side comparison of the commands from the pyramid in tabular form:

Level	Keys	Backwards or upwards motion	Keys	Forwards or downwards motion
1	`h`	previous character	`l`	next character
2	`b`	previous word	`w`	next word
3	`ge`	end of previous word	`e`	end of word
4	`B`	previous WORD	`W`	next WORD
5	`gE`	end of previous WORD	`E`	end of WORD
6	`T{char}`	till previous `{char}`	`t{char}`	till next `{char}` character
7	`F{char}`	to previous `{char}`	`f{char}`	to next `{char}` character
8	`^`	first non-blank character	`g_`	last non-blank character
9	`0`	beginning of line	`$`	end of line
10	`k`	previous line	`j`	next line
11	`(`	previous sentence	`)`	next sentence
12	`{`	previous paragraph	`}`	next paragraph
13	`[[`	beginning of C function	`][`	end of C function
14	`[*` ^a	beginning of previous C comment	`]*` ^b	end of next C comment
15	`[]`	end of previous C function	`]]`	beginning of next C function
16	`Ctrl`+`b`	previous screen	`Ctrl`+`f`	next screen
17	`gg`	top	`G`	bottom

^a or [/

^b or ]/