Inserting a blank line in vim?

Question

I quite often find I have a need to insert a blank line either below or above the current line when editing in vim. o and O will do this, but they subsequently switch into insert mode, which is annoying. Is there any built-in command to do this which will remain in normal mode?

score 37 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 13 '13 at 13:51

37

I've been using these

map <Enter> o<ESC>
map <S-Enter> O<ESC>

in my .vimrc for years.

Press Enter to insert a blank line below current, Shift + Enter to insert it above.

answered Jun 13 '13 at 13:51

Daniele Santi

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I am marking this correct as it's the simplest solution, although all these answers are good. – Andrew Ferrier Jun 19 '13 at 13:07
So simple! This should be the accepted answer! – Sheharyar Oct 26 '15 at 14:55
If you don't want the cursor to move when you hit Enter, put `k` at the end of the first map and `j` at the end of the second map. – zondo Nov 24 '16 at 02:38
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Note that mapping Shift-Enter only works with the GUI version of vim, not the terminal version. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16359878/vim-how-to-map-shift-enter – ishmael Dec 26 '16 at 18:39

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 13 '13 at 13:25

10

Both Tim Pope's unimpaired plugin as well as my own LineJuggler plugin provide [<Space> and ]<Space> mappings to add [count] blank lines above / below the current line.

Basically, it boils down to this:

nnoremap <silent> ]<Space> :<C-u>put =repeat(nr2char(10),v:count)<Bar>execute "'[-1"<CR>
nnoremap <silent> [<Space> :<C-u>put!=repeat(nr2char(10),v:count)<Bar>execute "']+1"<CR>

answered Jun 13 '13 at 13:25

Ingo Karkat

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I now use this, so I've marked this as the "correct" solution; but all the answers here are great. – Andrew Ferrier Oct 12 '14 at 09:31
Great tip, although I preferred to map `o` and `O` instead. – simlev Mar 28 '17 at 14:30

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 13 '13 at 13:59

Yet another way to insert lines above or below:

nnoremap <Enter> :call append(line('.'), '')<CR>
nnoremap <S-Enter> :call append(line('.')-1, '')<CR>

Note that the solution from romainl and Mr Shunz will move the cursor to the newly inserted line, whereas this and also the one from Ingo Karkat will keep the cursor at the same spot.

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 13 '13 at 13:27

2

No, there's no built-in command for that.

These mappings do what you want:

nnoremap <leader>o o<Esc>
nnoremap <leader>O O<Esc>

answered Jun 13 '13 at 13:27

romainl

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Inserting a blank line in vim?

4 Answers4