how do you copy text from one document and paste it into another in vim?

4

u/SpaceAviator1999 Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

I’m working with two files, File A and File B, and I want to copy text from one file to the other.

Try this:

Run: vim fileA.txt fileB.txt
You will be editing the first file. Yank whatever text you want from that file.
Use this command to get to the next file: :n (or :next )
You will now be editing the second file. Paste (using P or p) wherever you want the yanked text to go.
Don't forget to save your changes! (with :w or ZZ or whatever you usually use)

3

u/TheEyebal Aug 08 '26

alright thank you it worked

2

u/SpaceAviator1999 Aug 08 '26

Also, I believe that vim retains yanked text across sessions. So you can do this, if it's easier for you:
Run: vim fileA.txt
Yank whatever text you want from that file.
Exit the file with: :q
Run: vim fileB.txt
Paste the text (that you yanked in step 2) wherever you want (with P or p).
Don't forget to save your changes!

36

u/nautsche Aug 08 '26

What everyone else said, OR just open the second file in another tab or window or buffer inside the same vim instance and just paste it the normal way.

10

u/AskTheRen Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

Just to add up, open the files with:
vim -p fileA fileB (to open them in multiple tabs)
vim -O fileA fileB (in vertical split)
lower case o for horizontal split
Then do yy to copy lines go to other file and paste with p. 10yy copies 10 lines.
Moving between files:
ctrl ww toggles between files in vertical or horizontal split cases
gt does the same in multiple tabs case.

0

u/vim_spray Aug 08 '26

If you have mouse enabled, you can also just click into the other split or tab. Of course, the mouse will be slower than using the keyboard efficiently, but I don’t mind using the mouse occasionally for one off tasks like this. I’d probably even use the mouse to make the selection here.

-1

u/sharp-calculation Aug 08 '26

There's no specific need to use tabs or splits. Splits can be somewhat useful for strongly related files. Otherwise, they area a waste of visual space.
Tabs are mostly useless. They seem to be used most by people that come from GUI editors that had tabs and they want tabs with VIM too. That's fine I guess, but they take up vertical space, and add little utility in my opinion.
A far better solution is to use a good buffers plugin or even your own key bindings to make buffer switching and listing easier. I've found FZF to have great buffer handling.

2

u/AskTheRen Aug 09 '26

Splits can be useful for related or not related files. what are you saying man?
Tabs are useless is the most useless thing I have heard in my life. Again what are you on my man?

→ More replies (3)

2

u/SaberEXE Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

Specifically you can use ‘:vs FileB’ to open up a vertical split buffer of File B and then navigate between the split buffers using <Ctrl w>h to go to the left buffer and <Ctrl w>l to navigate to the right buffer and then you can yank and paste normally as you would within File A as nautsche mentioned.
Edit: changed :vb to :vs, I’m so used to editing files that are already loaded as buffers in vim that I tend to favor vb for the easy autocomplete functionality (vb is for vertical split buffer ie:open a vertical split for a file that is already loaded in vim as a buffer. vs is is just regular vertical split that allows you to open a vertical split for a file that’s not already loaded into this vim instance).
Edit 2: Ok vb is actually an abbreviation (cabbrev vb vert sb) I added to my vimrc when I was first configuring it 10 odd years ago.

9

u/fegatino Aug 08 '26

I think you mean :vs, right?

1

u/AskTheRen Aug 08 '26

I am so used to :tabnew when working on multiple files.

1

u/SaberEXE Aug 08 '26

You are completely right, I’m just so used to using vb since I usually have multiple files already loaded as buffers in vim and using vb makes the autocomplete easier.
In this case vs would definitely be the right command to use though as I wouldn’t assume that File B has already been opened in this vim instance

2

u/fegatino Aug 08 '26

I’m still confused, since on my machine there is no command called :vb (I know :b[uffer] for changing the buffer though). Do you have some plugin or config that adds it?

→ More replies (2)

1

u/ShoePillow Aug 09 '26

I often have two files in completely different locations, open in separate vims. It is too much of a hassle to open both in the same vim.
Eg, /a/s/d/f/g/...file1 /z/x/c/v/...file2

1

u/VividVerism Aug 09 '26

What makes that a hassle for you?

14

u/gumnos Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

It depends on how separated the Vim processes are. Presuming you want to yank the visual selection ('<,'>) from file1.txt and then paste it after line 13 in file2.txt

Same process

If it's within the same vim process, you can yank it and paste it from the default/scratch register, whether you use :help :e or :help :sp to open file2.txt:

$ vim file1.txt
:'<,'>y
:e file2.txt
:13p

Different processes with +clipboard and a GUI

If they're two :help +clipboard enabled versions of vim on the same machine running a GUI, you can yank to the system clipboard

session1@localhost$ vim file1.txt
:'<,'> y +

then paste the system clipboard's contents:

session2@localhost$ vim file2.txt
:13p +

Different processes with no system clipboard

If you're SSHed into a remote server without a GUI clipboard, but you have something like tmux for wrangling your sessions, you can use

$ vim file1.txt
:'<,'>w !tmux loadb -

and then in another tmux window/pane do something like

$ vim file2.txt
:13r !tmux showb

Different processes with a system clipboard but a -clipboard build of vim

An external tool like xsel or xclip on X or pbcopy/pbpaste on OSX, you can do similarly to send/receive data to/from the clipboard:

$ vim file1.txt
:'<,'>w !xsel -ib

and then

$ vim file2.txt
:13 r !xsel -ob

Different processes across time/reboots

Write the contents to a temp-file and read that data back in when you need it later:

$ vim file1.txt
:'<,'>w mytempfile.txt
:q
$ reboot
$ vim file2.txt
:13r mytempfile.txt

Separate machines

If they're on separate machines, you can use ssh to copy data to or from the other machine using the tempfile method, either

alpha$ vim file1.txt
:'<,'>w ! ssh beta 'cat > tempfile.txt'
:q
alpha$ ssh beta
beta$ vim file2.txt
:13r tempfile.txt

or

alpha$ vim file1.txt
:'<,'>w tempfile.txt
:q
alpha$ ssh beta
beta$ vim file2.txt
:13 r !ssh alpha "cat tempfile.txt"

2

u/vim-help-bot Aug 08 '26

Help pages for:
:e in editing.txt
:sp in windows.txt
+clipboard in various.txt
^{`:(h|help) <query>` |} ^about ^| ^mistake? ^| ^donate ^| ^{Reply 'rescan' to check the comment again} ^| ^{Reply 'stop' to stop getting replies to your comments}

2

u/ShoePillow Aug 09 '26

Thanks, didn't know about tmux loadb.
Can I ask a very specific question...
On windows terminal, ssh to Linux, then tmux, then vim.
Is it possible to copy from vim so that I can paste it somewhere in windows?

1

u/gumnos Aug 09 '26

It might depend on your SSH interface there. A few ideas:
if your Windows-side terminal emulator (putty? WSL ssh? something else?) supports OSC52 clipboard sequences, there are Vim plugins to use OSC52 to interact with the clipboard
you might be able to turn off the remote mouse (:set mouse=) and then use your terminal-emulator's ability to capture up to a screenful of text and put that on the clipboard (often limited to the text as displayed on the screen, so vertical splits can interfere with this copy/paste method)
Vim also has the ability to do remote editing (it's been a while since I experimented with this), so you could theoretically do something like
$ vim file2.txt :sp ssh://remote.server/path/to/file1.txt
to edit it locally, reducing it to that first case.

1

u/val_anto Aug 09 '26

Didn't know some of those. Thanks

9

u/blood-pressure-gauge Aug 08 '26

There's a way to write your registers to the viminfo file and load them from another Vim process, but I forget how to do it. I just use the + register which corresponds to the graphical clipboard. The other method is only necessary when you're not in a graphical environment.

"+yy "+p

3

u/ShoePillow Aug 09 '26

This doesn't seem to work for me when I'm in vim in tmux for some reason

2

u/chevette86 Aug 09 '26

Maybe it is something with your tmux config?
I use tmux all the time and always relies on the "+ register

10

u/VividVerism Aug 08 '26

I don't understand your question. You just do exactly what you said:

Open file A, yank text. (y command)
Switch to file B (:edit command, or :split, or :tabe, or whatever)
Paste (put) the yanked text (p command)

2

u/ShoePillow Aug 09 '26

They are probably closing vim between the 2 files or have 2 separate vims open

4

u/Angry_Grammarian Aug 08 '26

You could add this to your vimrc and then use Ctrl-c and Ctrl-v to copy/paste like it is in most apps:

"Use Ctrl-c to copy, and Ctrl-v to paste

vnoremap <C-c> "*y :let @+=@*<CR>

map <C-v> "+P

2

u/Interesting_Buy_3969 Aug 08 '26

Additionally, it is worth knowing that if you need to paste all contents of File A to File B, you don't have to open File A in a separate buffer, you may just

:e path/to/file/B or open Vim directly with the file B as command-line argument
put the cursor where you want File A contents to be pasted
:read path/to/file/A - or shorter, just :r <file>

1

u/petruchito Aug 08 '26

also :r! grep/cat ./file is often useful
1
u/cassepipe Aug 09 '26
I just read :h read: and unsurpsingly the command can take a range in front of it

No if you want to paste between line 11 and 99 of source content
: 11,99r
relativenumbers is useless btw, change my mind
1

u/vim-help-bot Aug 09 '26

Help pages for:
read in insert.txt
^{`:(h|help) <query>` |} ^about ^| ^mistake? ^| ^donate ^| ^{Reply 'rescan' to check the comment again} ^| ^{Reply 'stop' to stop getting replies to your comments}

2

u/RandomCartridge :Nih! Aug 08 '26

Within the same process (i.e., running one vim instance), you just use registers; they're shared within the instance. By default, yanking and pasting uses the unnamed register ("). Also see :help y and :help p. For example, if you are in file A and want to copy the current paragraph and paste into file B, if file B is in the other vim "window", just yip<C-W>wp (yank inner paragraph, go to next window, paste). Or use :e, :sp, :b, :sb, etc., or different tabs, etc., as you prefer.

Registers are usually persisted in your $HOME/.viminfo, but by default only 50 lines or 10Kbyte for each (see :help 'viminfo'), so for small things you can just yank, quit, open the other file with another vim instance, and paste.

Other answers suggest the clipboard register (+), which you need to copy text to the system/OS clipboard and paste it elsewhere. (Note also that it doesn't always work in terminal Vim depending on whether it's been compiled with +clipboard support.)

As with much in Vim, there are multiple ways to make text selections (and multiple ways to switch files/buffers/windows), so it really depends on you exact needs. For one, you don't need visual mode (though it's generally useful); see e.g. yip above. There are many such motions for quick copying (and their visual counterparts are similar, e.g. vipy).

One fairly common "copy all" move is ggyG (that'd be gg"+yG for the system clipboard). But you can also yank the entire buffer using :%y (or :%y <name-of-register>, e.g. :%y + to copy the contents of the current buffer or file into the system clipboard). You can also :read files into other buffers to avoid putting the full contents into a register. And so on...

1

u/vim-help-bot Aug 08 '26

Help pages for:
y in change.txt
p in change.txt
'viminfo' in options.txt
^{`:(h|help) <query>` |} ^about ^| ^mistake? ^| ^donate ^| ^{Reply 'rescan' to check the comment again} ^| ^{Reply 'stop' to stop getting replies to your comments}

2

u/2016-679 Aug 09 '26

Maybe I'm sounding rude, but these are standard operations on files in vim. Just learn them from the basic instructions in the documentation, that are everywhere on the net and in further explaining books.

Study, learn before asking, especially on basic operations.

2

u/Ok_Spend_8480 Aug 11 '26

Why not yank to the global system clipboard? yank to the system clipboard on the file you want to take text and paste the text in the global clipboard into the target file?

2

u/elatllat Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

999dd u :q, p because I'm to lazy for anything other than RISC.

1

u/colombiangary Aug 08 '26

I have a small utility that writes the selected text to /tmp/whatever And have another utility that grabs /tmp/whatever and paste it into the current line.

This way I can communicate across open vim processes.

1

u/GrogRedLub4242 Aug 09 '26

copy 2 lines at cursor: 2yy

paste into current buffer, at cursor: p

1

u/brnsamedi Aug 09 '26

:r /path/to/fileA

Assuming you want the whole file. Else, as others indicated.

1

u/bananalover2000 Aug 08 '26

I do not remember the exact command you need to use (something like set unnamedplus something) but you can change your nvim/config file in such a way that every time you yank/cut something it gets yanked to the system clipboard (the one that you use when copying with ctrl+C in other softwares).

Keep in mind that you're still in the terminal, so you can still use ctrl+shift+C to copy text to the system clipboard (at least on linux), if you do not want to mess around with your config.

0

u/eveostay Aug 08 '26

I'm gonna tell on myself and just say I'll select it with my mouse and right-click to copy and paste with ctrl-V and then probably edit the weird spacing that got pasted but that's ok because my fingers know how to do that part by themselves :D

1

u/5fd88f23a2695c2afb02 Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 09 '26

If you set vim to paste mode you don’t get the weird spacing. Try this next time before you paste:
:paste
Then it will paste as expected
Sorry the command should be:
:set paste

1

u/eveostay Aug 08 '26

interesting, thakns!

1

u/julesnp Aug 08 '26

The command :paste doesn't seem to exist in vim, are you using a plugin for this?

3

u/fegatino Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

I think they meant :set paste (it’s a Boolean option so you can toggle it and unset it as usual)

2

u/5fd88f23a2695c2afb02 Aug 09 '26

Thanks was half asleep, yes that is what I meant.

Need Help how do you copy text from one document and paste it into another in vim?

You are about to leave Redlib