Scroll

Scrolling

These commands move the contents of the window. If the cursor position is moved off of the window, the cursor is moved onto the window (with 'scrolloff' screen lines around it). A page is the number of lines in the window minus two. The mnemonics for these commands may be a bit confusing. Remember that the commands refer to moving the window (the part of the buffer that you see) upwards or downwards in the buffer. When the window moves upwards in the buffer, the text in the window moves downwards on your screen.

See section 03.7 of the user manual for an introduction.

The following commands move the edit window (the part of the buffer that you see) downwards (this means that more lines downwards in the text buffer can be seen):

CTRL-E
CTRL-E Scroll window [count] lines downwards in the buffer. The text moves upwards on the screen. Mnemonic: Extra lines.

CTRL-D
CTRL-D Scroll window Downwards in the buffer. The number of lines comes from the 'scroll' option (default: half a screen). If [count] given, first set 'scroll' option to [count]. The cursor is moved the same number of lines down in the file (if possible; when lines wrap and when hitting the end of the file there may be a difference). When the cursor is on the last line of the buffer nothing happens and a beep is produced. See also 'startofline' option.

<S-Down> or <S-Down> <kPageDown> <PageDown> or <PageDown> CTRL-F <S-CR> or <S-CR> <S-NL> <S-+> or SHIFT-+ <S-Plus> CTRL-F Scroll window [count] pages Forwards (downwards) in the buffer. See also 'startofline' option. When there is only one window the 'window' option might be used.

z+
z+ Without [count]: Redraw with the line just below the window at the top of the window. Put the cursor in that line, at the first non-blank in the line. With [count]: just like "z<CR>".

The following commands move the edit window (the part of the buffer that you see) upwards (this means that more lines upwards in the text buffer can be seen):

CTRL-Y
CTRL-Y Scroll window [count] lines upwards in the buffer. The text moves downwards on the screen. Note: When using the MS-Windows key bindings CTRL-Y is remapped to redo.

CTRL-U
CTRL-U Scroll window Upwards in the buffer. The number of lines comes from the 'scroll' option (default: half a screen). If [count] given, first set the 'scroll' option to [count]. The cursor is moved the same number of lines up in the file (if possible; when lines wrap and when hitting the end of the file there may be a difference). When the cursor is on the first line of the buffer nothing happens and a beep is produced. See also 'startofline' option.

<S-Up> or <S-Up> <kPageUp> <PageUp> or <PageUp> CTRL-B <S--> or <S-Minus> SHIFT-MINUS CTRL-B Scroll window [count] pages Backwards (upwards) in the buffer. See also 'startofline' option. When there is only one window the 'window' option might be used.

z^
z^ Without [count]: Redraw with the line just above the window at the bottom of the window. Put the cursor in that line, at the first non-blank in the line. With [count]: First scroll the text to put the [count] line at the bottom of the window, then redraw with the line which is now at the top of the window at the bottom of the window. Put the cursor in that line, at the first non-blank in the line.

The following commands reposition the edit window (the part of the buffer that you see) while keeping the cursor on the same line. Note that the 'scrolloff' option may cause context lines to show above and below the cursor.

z<CR>
z<CR> Redraw, line [count] at top of window (default cursor line). Put cursor at first non-blank in the line.

zt
zt Like "z<CR>", but leave the cursor in the same column.

zN<CR>
z{height}<CR> Redraw, make window {height} lines tall. This is useful to make the number of lines small when screen updating is very slow. Cannot make the height more than the physical screen height.

z.
z. Redraw, line [count] at center of window (default cursor line). Put cursor at first non-blank in the line.

zz
zz Like "z.", but leave the cursor in the same column. Careful: If caps-lock is on, this command becomes "ZZ": write buffer and exit!

z-
z- Redraw, line [count] at bottom of window (default cursor line). Put cursor at first non-blank in the line.

zb
zb Like "z-", but leave the cursor in the same column.

For the following four commands the cursor follows the screen. If the character that the cursor is on is moved off the screen, the cursor is moved to the closest character that is on the screen. The value of 'sidescroll' is not used.

z<Right> or zl z<Right> zl Move the view on the text [count] characters to the right, thus scroll the text [count] characters to the left. This only works when 'wrap' is off.

z<Left> or zh z<Left> zh Move the view on the text [count] characters to the left, thus scroll the text [count] characters to the right. This only works when 'wrap' is off.

zL
zL Move the view on the text half a screenwidth to the right, thus scroll the text half a screenwidth to the left. This only works when 'wrap' is off.

zH
zH Move the view on the text half a screenwidth to the left, thus scroll the text half a screenwidth to the right. This only works when 'wrap' is off.

For the following two commands the cursor is not moved in the text, only the text scrolls on the screen.

zs
zs Scroll the text horizontally to position the cursor at the start (left side) of the screen. This only works when 'wrap' is off.

ze
ze Scroll the text horizontally to position the cursor at the end (right side) of the screen. This only works when 'wrap' is off.

Occasionally, it is desirable to bind two or more windows together such that when one window is scrolled, the other windows are also scrolled. In Vim, windows can be given this behavior by setting the (window-specific) 'scrollbind' option. When a window that has 'scrollbind' set is scrolled, all other 'scrollbind' windows are scrolled the same amount, if possible. The behavior of 'scrollbind' can be modified by the 'scrollopt' option.

When using the scrollbars or the mouse wheel, the binding only happens when scrolling the window with focus (where the cursor is). You can use this to avoid scroll-binding for a moment without resetting options.

When a window also has the 'diff' option set, the scroll-binding uses the differences between the two buffers to synchronize the position precisely. Otherwise the following method is used.

scrollbind-relative
Each 'scrollbind' window keeps track of its "relative offset", which can be thought of as the difference between the current window's vertical scroll position and the other window's vertical scroll position. When one of the 'scrollbind' windows is asked to vertically scroll past the beginning or end limit of its text, the window no longer scrolls, but remembers how far past the limit it wishes to be. The window keeps this information so that it can maintain the same relative offset, regardless of its being asked to scroll past its buffer's limits.

However, if a 'scrollbind' window that has a relative offset that is past its buffer's limits is given the cursor focus, the other 'scrollbind' windows must jump to a location where the current window's relative offset is valid. This behavior can be changed by clearing the "jump" flag from the 'scrollopt' option.

syncbind :syncbind :sync :syncbind Force all 'scrollbind' windows to have the same relative offset. I.e., when any of the 'scrollbind' windows is scrolled to the top of its buffer, all of the 'scrollbind' windows will also be at the top of their buffers.

scrollbind-quickadj
The 'scrollbind' flag is meaningful when using keyboard commands to vertically scroll a window, and is also meaningful when using the vertical scrollbar or the mouse wheel in the window which has the cursor focus. However, when using the vertical scrollbar or the mouse wheel in a window which doesn't have the cursor focus, 'scrollbind' is ignored. This allows quick adjustment of the relative offset of 'scrollbind' windows.

When your mouse has a scroll wheel, it should work with Nvim in the GUI and any terminal that has mouse support. By default only vertical scroll wheels are supported, but some GUIs also support horizontal scroll wheels.

Note that horizontal scrolling only works if 'nowrap' is set. Also, unless the "h" flag in 'guioptions' is set, the cursor moves to the longest visible line if the cursor line is about to be scrolled off the screen (similarly to how the horizontal scrollbar works).

You can control the number of lines / columns to scroll by using the 'mousescroll' option. You can also modify the default behavior by mapping the keys. For example, to scroll a page at a time in normal mode:

:map <ScrollWheelUp> <C-B>
:map <ScrollWheelDown> <C-F>

Scroll keys can also be combined with modifiers such as Shift, Ctrl, and Alt.

When scrolling with a mouse, the window currently under the cursor is scrolled. This allows you to scroll inactive windows. Note that when scroll keys are remapped to keyboard keys, the active window is affected regardless of the current cursor position.