489

There must be a way, something like this:

vim -[option] <file-list>

to open files from command prompt and not from within Vim.

  • split windows vertically or/and horizontally
  • in separate tabs
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5 Answers 5

Reset to default
494

From vim --help:

-p[N]  Open N tab pages (default: one for each file)
-o[N]  Open N windows (default: one for each file)
-O[N]  Like -o but split vertically

So type this to open files split horizontally, for example:

vim -o file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt

If N is provided the N windows/tabs will be opened. If N is less than the number of files in arguments, then the remaining files will be loaded in hidden buffers. If N is greater than the number of arguments, the remaining windows/tabs will be editing an empty file.

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4
  • 15
    Really? I've never had to provide an N.
    – Cascabel
    Commented Oct 5, 2009 at 20:03
  • 3
    Indeed, it seems to be something in my .vimrc causing the trouble. If I move it aside, -o without N works as documented.
    – Laurence Gonsalves
    Commented Oct 6, 2009 at 3:35
  • 35
    -o is like :split, -O is like :vsplit
    – Evgeni Sergeev
    Commented Jan 21, 2014 at 10:06
  • @user3338098 I think there may have been a deleted comment here; Laurence's "Indeed..." comment implies that it was causing problems when omitted.
    – Cascabel
    Commented Jul 24, 2018 at 17:32
517

Ctrl+W, S (case does not matter) for horizontal splitting

Ctrl+W, v (lower case) for vertical splitting

Ctrl+W, q (lower case) to close one

Ctrl+W, Ctrl+W to switch between windows

Ctrl+W, j (or k, h, l; lowercase) to switch to adjacent window (down, up, left, right respectively)

Ctrl+W, t (or b) to switch to the top-left (or bottom-right) pane

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8
  • 13
    To switch screens, Press Ctrl-w and then up arrow or down arrow to switch screens.
    – Eric Leschinski
    Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 1:20
  • 9
    Ah but you can use regular vim movements, e.g. ctrl+w j to jump to the buffer below the current one.
    – mitjak
    Commented Oct 4, 2013 at 21:00
  • swapped order of down and up for Ctrl + W J(down) and Ctrl + W K(up)
    – pseyfert
    Commented Nov 30, 2016 at 17:02
  • 1
    Thanks this helped me figure out how to move backwards, Ctrl + w left arrow. I always use ctrl + ww to cycle forward. If your on the bottom and need to access a file on the top quickly, and don't want to go forward, you need to move up first with ctrl + w up arrow before moving left(or right). Thanks.
    – Brian Thomas
    Commented May 11, 2017 at 20:09
  • @Atav32 I was responding to a comment, not a question, and this is Superuser, not stack overflow. The comment used the wrong term and I asked a simple question in response in an attempt to politely point this out as you can't moderate comments and it's not wrong enough to warrant a flag. Plus it didn't work anyway, no matter what you call it.
    – user115145
    Commented May 9, 2018 at 8:12
401

While running vim:

  1. :sp filename for a horizontal split
  2. :vsp filename or :vs filename for a vertical split
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4
  • 79
    This doesn't answer the question raised...but it SURE helped me out :D Thanks!
    – Abel
    Commented Mar 24, 2011 at 18:45
  • 10
    thanks, just what I was looking for. I also :set splitright
    – zack
    Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 23:44
  • 5
    ctrl-ww for switching between splits
    – Abbas Gadhia
    Commented Feb 17, 2014 at 9:29
  • :vsplit filename is the same as :vsp filename and :vs filename, but perhaps a tiny bit easier to remember for some people
    – b_dev
    Commented Sep 13, 2016 at 17:14
23

another interested trick is the CLI -p argument - which opens them in separate tabs for recent versions of vim and gvim.

gvim -p file1.txt file2.txt
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2

Another useful trick that I just found out, is that you can use wildcards in the filelist to open multiple files. Say you want to open file1.txt, file2.txt, and file3.txt all in separate tabs but don't feel like typing that all out you can just do:

vim -p file*

I frequently find myself needing to open a lot of files with a similar prefix, and this has been quite helpful

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1
  • 15
    That does not have to do with Vim itself but with the shell you are using. It is the shell that expands globs.
    – Kazark
    Commented Aug 24, 2012 at 19:16

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