Replace text when in visual-block mode

vim find-and-replace text-editing

17,523

Solution 1

Why don't you select 4 columns and hit c?

<C-v>
2j
3l
cDone
<Esc>

Also, you could use :h normal:

V
2j
:'<,'>norm 7lRDone
<Esc>

If you want to substitute within a visual block, you can use the vis.vim plugin.

To install:

# Open vis.vba.gz in Vim 7.1 or later.
vim vis.vba.gz

# Source the open file.
:so %

# Quit Vim
:q

Once installed:

ctrl-v to enter visual-block mode
Move to select the block you want
:B s/pattern/newtext/

Even better, you can perform any Ex command on the visual block, not just substitutions. For example :B !sort.

17,523

Updated on September 18, 2022

Thor almost 2 years
Maybe I'm searching the wrong way, but I've failed to find out how to do this.

Here's the scenario: I have a list in a text file where I want to insert the same word on multiple lines, here's an example text:
```
12.1           Item1
12.2           Item2
12.3           Item3
```
Now I visual-block mark the 8th column, indicated with underscores below, and intend to replace part of the whitespace with Done without moving the item column:
```
12.1   _       Item1
12.2   _       Item2
12.3   _       Item3
```
I expected that I could go into replace mode, but I can only enter insert (I), append (A), or change-mode (c). The change-mode comes close to what I want: if I know the length of the word the block can be set to the same width.

Is there something I'm missing here?
Thor almost 12 years

That works for Done, but what if I want to write something else, I want to be free from counting characters, if possible.
romainl almost 12 years

:norm is your friend, then.
Thor almost 12 years

Yes the second solution can be used for a convenient mapping. Thank you.
Thor over 8 years

Nice plugin, I will be using it :-). But how can I use it to replace arbitrary columns?
Christian Long over 8 years

Right, you still have the problem of quickly setting the visual block width to match your arbitrary-width columns. I usually do <count> w or e to select several columns quickly, then adjust with h or l.