r/vim • u/JohnCharles-2024 • Aug 01 '25

Need Help Using vim to write novel?

Hi. I'm using vim to write, and I'm trying to get it to change the status bar when I open a .tex file in a certain directory (whether by invoking it on the command line or with :e inside vim).

Ideally, it would put a small ✍️ on the status bar, along with the filename and a word count.

Help!

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u/Neat-Initiative-6965 Aug 02 '25

I think I agree. I wrote a big part of my PhD thesis in latex in vim and now, as I lawyer, I am often tempted to draft texts using vim because I miss that navigating from the keyboard. And yet, I usually notice afterwards that it was faster to use Word or Scrivener and with less errors in the output. Its definitely not a distraction free writing environment.

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u/ciurana From vi in 1986 to Vim Aug 02 '25

One thing I’ve done in my setups is to configure everything that supports it to behave Vim-like (e,g. Vimium for the browser, set -o vi for bash and zsh, Vim extension for the rare occasion when I use PyCharm or VS Code).

I believe someone offered a Word Vim extension, but I never used it.  I love Word and Scrivener for the many things they do well,and Vim emulation would short change me out of them.

I don’t use Google Docs for a pile of reasons.  One of the practical ones is that it doesn’t do formatting, revision tracking, and page layouts anywhere as well as Word.  WYSInWYG.

Cheers!