Copy, Paste and Visual Mode

The default behavior of vim doesn't copy to your OS clipboard, but instead copies to a register, which can also be the OS clipboard.

Copy and paste with specifying registers

To yank (copy) a text, you can copy the text from NORMAL mode with the y operator combined with a movement ,or you can enter visual mode with v and yank the text with y.

A text is copied to the registers when you change and delete text too.

To paste the yanked result you can use:

• p - paste after the cursor
• P - paste before the cursor
• <M-p> (Alt+p) - paste in insert mode

Visual Modes

• v - Normal Visual mode
• V - Visual Line mode, selects text by lines
• <C-v> - Visual Block mode, selects text by block

You can replace text by pasting new text after selecting the text to replace with visual, this action copies the replaced text to a register too.

Registers

To specify a destination for the copy use ".
For example to copy to register a I'll hit these keys: "ay<movement>".

Same for pasting: "ap.

Use _ - as the black hole register, when you want to delete a text without transferring it to a register.

There are many things you can do with registers, I suggest to briefly read :help registers.

Binds to delete/change/replace without yanking.

map('x', '<leader>p', '"_dP', 'Replace without yanking')

map('n', '<leader>d', '"_d', 'Delete without yanking') -- e.g <leader>dd deletes the current line without yanking it
map('n', '<leader>D', '"_D', 'Delete until EOL without yanking')

map('n', '<leader>c', '"_c', 'Change without yanking')
map('n', '<leader>C', '"_C', 'Change until EOL without yanking')

Using the OS clipboard

+ is the OS clipboard register, you can yank to it and you can paste from it.

I use these binds to use the OS clipboard without too many key presses:

map('', '<leader>y', '"+y', 'Yank to clipboard') -- E.g: <leader>yy will yank current line to os clipboard
map('', '<leader>Y', '"+y$', 'Yank until EOL to clipboard')

map('n', '<leader>p', '"+p', 'Paste after cursor from clipboard')
map('n', '<leader>P', '"+P', 'Paste before cursor from clipboard')

Plugins

Put/Yank Improvements

• yanky.nvim to cycle fast in my copy history after pasting instead of using the registers.
• peekup - dynamically interact with vim registers.
• registers.nvim to see the registers before yanking from/to them.