Copy all the lines to clipboard
VimEditorKeyboard ShortcutsViVim Problem Overview
Is there any way to copy all lines from open file to clipboard in VI editor. I tried yG but it's not using clipboard to store those lines.
So is it possible?
Vim Solutions
Solution 1 - Vim
Use:
:%y+
to yank all lines.
Explanation:
%
to refer the next command to work on all the linesy
to yank those lines+
to copy to the system clipboard
NB: In Windows, +
and *
are equivalent see this answer.
Solution 2 - Vim
You should yank the text to the *
or +
registers:
gg"*yG
Explanation:
gg
to get the cursor to the first character of the file"*y
to start a yank command to the register*
from the first line, until...G
to go the end of the file
Solution 3 - Vim
on Mac
-
copy selected part: visually select text(type
v
orV
in normal mode) and type:w !pbcopy
-
copy the whole file
:%w !pbcopy
-
past from the clipboard
:r !pbpaste
Solution 4 - Vim
The clipboard is buffer +. To copy to clipboard, do "+y and [movement].
So, gg"+yG will copy the whole file.
Similarly, to paste from clipboard, "+p
Solution 5 - Vim
Another easy way to copy the entire file if you're having problems using VI, is just by typing "cat filename". It will echo the file to screen and then you can just scroll up and down and copy/paste.
Solution 6 - Vim
This is what I do to yank the whole file:
ggVGy
Solution 7 - Vim
You can use "cat" command to open file and use mouse to copy
Solution 8 - Vim
(in reply to @rshdev, and to avoid having to recompile vim with +xterm_clipboard per @nelstrom in comments on OP)
there's a program called xclip that works like putclip on Ubuntu 11:
:%!xclip -sel clip
u
it's not installed by default. to install, use:
sudo apt-get install xclip
Solution 9 - Vim
On Ubuntu 12
you might try to install the vim-gnome
package:
sudo apt-get install vim-gnome
I tried it, because vim --version
told me that it would have the flag xterm_clipboard disabled (indicated by - ), which is needed in order to use the clipboard functionality.
-> installing the vim-gnome package on Ubuntu 12 also installed a console based version of vim, that has this option enabled (indicated by a + before the xterm_clipboard flag)
On Arch Linux
you may install vim-clipboard
for the same reason.
If you run neovim then you should install xclip
(as explained by help clipboard-tool
)
Solution 10 - Vim
you can press gg to locate your curser to the start of the file,then press yG to copy all the content from the start to end(G located) to buffer.good luck!
Solution 11 - Vim
If you're using Vim in visual mode, the standard cut and paste keys also apply, at least with Windows.
- CTRLA means "Mark the entire file.
- CTRLC means "Copy the selection.
- ESC means "De-select, so your next key press doesn't replace the entire file :-)
Under Ubuntu terminal (Gnome) at least, the standard copy also works (CTRLSHIFTC, although there doesn't appear to be a standard keyboard shortcut for select all
(other than ALTE followed by A).
Solution 12 - Vim
Do copy the whole file inside the vim or its tabs
y G
then move to a tab and paste by
p
and to cut the whole file use
d G
Solution 13 - Vim
gVim:
:set go=a
ggVG
See :help go-a
:
'a' Autoselect: If present, then whenever VISUAL mode is started,
or the Visual area extended, Vim tries to become the owner of
the windowing system's global selection. This means that the
Visually highlighted text is available for pasting into other
applications as well as into Vim itself. When the Visual mode
ends, possibly due to an operation on the text, or when an
application wants to paste the selection, the highlighted text
is automatically yanked into the "* selection register.
Thus the selection is still available for pasting into other
applications after the VISUAL mode has ended.
If not present, then Vim won't become the owner of the
windowing system's global selection unless explicitly told to
by a yank or delete operation for the "* register.
The same applies to the modeless selection.
Solution 14 - Vim
:%y a
Yanks all the content into vim's buffer,
Pressing p
in command mode will paste the yanked content after the line that your cursor is currently standing at.
Solution 15 - Vim
I tried a few of the commands that people have mentioned above. None worked. Then I got hold of the simplest of them all.
Step 1: vi <filename>
Step 2: Right click on the title bar of the Putty window
Step 3: Select "Clear scrollback" (to avoid copying the rest of your SSH session)
Step 4: Right click again and select "Copy all to clipboard".
Solution 16 - Vim
There wasn't a concept of "clipboard" in Bill Joy's vi so I don't think there is a built-in way to do it.
gVim's automatic copy-anything-highlighted-to-the-clipboard feature is easiest or use an external program via :!
For Cygwin's vim I use
:%!putclip
u
Maybe Ubuntu has a CLI app like putclip??
Solution 17 - Vim
Well, all of these approaches are interesting, however as lazy programmer I use yank all line by using combination of number + y
for example you have source code file with total of 78 lines, you can do as below:
gg
to get cursor at first line- insert 78 +
y
--> it yanks 78 lines below your cursor and current line
Solution 18 - Vim
I have added the following line to my .vimrc
nnoremap <F5> :%y+<CR>
This allows me to copy all text in Vim to the clipboard by pressing F5
(in command mode).
Solution 19 - Vim
If your fingers default to CTRL-A CTRL-C
, then try the mappings from $VIMRUNTIME/mswin.vim
.
" CTRL-C and CTRL-Insert are Copy
vnoremap <C-C> "+y
" CTRL-A is Select all
noremap <C-A> gggH<C-O>G
inoremap <C-A> <C-O>gg<C-O>gH<C-O>G
cnoremap <C-A> <C-C>gggH<C-O>G
onoremap <C-A> <C-C>gggH<C-O>G
snoremap <C-A> <C-C>gggH<C-O>G
xnoremap <C-A> <C-C>ggVG
I have them mapped to <Leader><C-a>
and <Leader><C-c>
.
Solution 20 - Vim
I know ten years on this should be settled but the first two answers did not work for me so I kept digging. On a Redhat (remote server) - Windows 10 (local machine), if you cannot select the whole thing with a mouse, you are stuck because the usual copies do not work between the remote and the local machine clipboards.
So, to copy on the remote Linux and to paste on the local Windows, specify the primary buffer with the * and do a nice double yank
Use gg" * yy.
Solution 21 - Vim
Here's a map command to select all to the clipboard using CTRL+a:
"
" select all with control-a
"
nnoremap <C-a> ggmqvG"+y'q
Add it to your .vimrc and you're good to go...
Solution 22 - Vim
You can use a shortcur, like this one:
noremap <F6> :%y+<CR>
It means, when you push F6 in normald mode, it will copy the whole file, and add it to the clipboard.
Or you just can type in normal mode :%y+
and then push Enter
.
Solution 23 - Vim
While many of the above answers are excellent, none of those solutions worked for me because I'm using the default VIM installation which came with Ubuntu 16.04, and it didn't have the clipboard option installed by default. I also wanted to paste the text into an external program.
Solution that worked: Ubuntu's default terminal allows you to highlight the entire contents by pressing Edit
then Select All
.
Solution 24 - Vim
I have created a function to perform this action, place it on your ~/.vimrc
.
fun! CopyBufferToClipboard()
%y+
endfun
nnoremap <Leader>y :call CopyBufferToClipboard()<CR>
command! -nargs=0 CopyFile :call CopyBufferToClipboard()
OBS: If you are using neovim you also need some clipboard manager like xclip. for more information type in neovim :h checkhealth
It is also important to mention that not always a simple y
will copy to the clipboard, in order to make every copy feed +
wich is "Clipboard Register" try to set: :set clipboard=unnamed,unnamedplus
. For mor information see: :h unnamed
.
Here more information on vim wikia.
Solution 25 - Vim
I use Vim in PowerShell and when I needed to copy a short block of code to windows clipboard;
I use :set nonumber
to remove line numbers, then select the code visually with cursor and right click. Then I paste it to where ever I want with Ctrl + V.
Solution 26 - Vim
I couldn't copy files using the answers above but I have putty and I found a workaround on Quora.
- Change settings of your PuTTY session, go to logging and change it to "printable characters". Set the log file
- Do a cat of the respective file
- Go to the file you set in step #1 and you will have your content in the log file.
Note: it copies all the printed characters of that session to the log file, so it will get big eventually. In that case, delete the log file and cat the target file so you get that particular file's content copied on your machine.
Solution 27 - Vim
Click the left mouse button, drag across the section you want to copy and release. The code automatically gets copied to clipboard.