ASCII or Unicode characters can be entered by their numeric values, in decimal,
octal or hex form. E.g. (in insert mode):
<Ctrl-v>ddd (3 dec digits, 1 byte)
<Ctrl-v>xhh (2 hex digits, 1 byte)
<Ctrl-v>uhhhh (4 hex digits, 2 byte)
Some useful shortcuts:
<Ctrl-v><Enter>
<CR> (byte = 13)
<Ctrl-v><Esc>
<Esc> (byte = 27)
<Ctrl-v><Ctrl-j>
<NL>
<Ctrl-@>
<Nul>
Consult (in particular, about <NL> being represented as <Nul>)
:he i_ctrl-v
:he i_ctrl-v_digit
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Control, math, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Hiragana/Katakana, drawing, ideographic,
etc Unicode characters can be entered via digraphs. There are two ways to enter
a character using a digraph (cc are the two characters that represent the
digraph):
<Ctrl-k>cc
c<BS>c only when ‘:set dg’
Consult
:he digraphs
:he dg
:digraph
rfc 1345 (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1345)
Some digraphs that might be useful to know (consult also the relevant Unicode
pages, basically 2xxx and 30xx, at http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/block):
NU null
BL bell
BS backspace
HT horizontal tabulation
LF line feed
FF form feed
CR (or <Enter><Enter>) carriage return
EC escape
DT delete (ascii 127)
BB broken bar (¦)
NS non-breakable space
-- soft hyphen
ss ß (sharp s)
n? N? ñ Ñ
l/ L/ ł Ł
ff fi fl ft ff fi fl ſt
ij IJ ij IJ
z/ Z/ ƶ Ƶ
', ': 'm ¸(cedilla) ¨(diaeresis) ¯(macron)
'- ‾ (overline)
!I ?I ¡ ¿
'6 '9 9' ‘ ’ ‛
"6 "9 :9 “ ” „
<< >> « »
-1 -N -M ‐ (hyphen) – (en dash) — (em dash)
.. ‥ (two dot leader)
Vs ␣ (visual space; officially ‘open box’)
%0 ‰ (per mille)
ae AE oe OE æ Æ œ Œ
Eu Ct Pd Ye Cu € ¢ £ ¥ ¤
SE N0 PI § № ¶
/- /= † ‡
-X ✠ (Maltese cross)
Co Rg TM © ® ™
OK ✓
+- -+ ± ∓
-2 *X *- -: RT − × ∗ ÷ √
:R :: ∶ (ratio) ∷ (proportion)
Sb .P Ob 0. 02 ∙ (bullet) ⋅ (dot) ∘ (ring) ⊙ (circled dot) ⊚ (circled ring)
*2 ★
.3 ⋯ (midline horizontal ellipsis)
=< >= 3= ≤ ≥ ≡
!< !> != ≮ ≯ ≠
<* >* ≪ ≫ (much less, greater)
-? CG 0( 〜 (wave dash) ∾ (inverted lazy s) ∝ (proportional)
?1 ?2 ?- ∼ ≈ (almost equal) ≃ (asymptotically equal)
PP ∥ (parallel)
-T ⊥ (perpendicular; officially ‘up tack’)
DG '0 ° (degree) ˚ (ring above)
-V -L ∠ (angle) ∟ (right angle)
00 ∞
(no digraph) ∢ (spherical angle)
+Z *P ∑ (summation) ∏ (product)
dP DE NB ∂ ∆ ∇
Om Ω (Ohm sign)
In DI Iu Il ∫ ∬ ⌠ ⌡
/0 ∅ (empty set; not the same as ⌀)
(- -) ∈ ∋
(C )C (_ )_ ⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇
(U )U ∩ ∪
NO AN OR ¬ ∧ ∨
FA TE ∀ ∃
.: :. ∴ (therefore) ∵ (because)
12 13 14 16 18 ½ ⅓ ¼ ⅙ ⅛
34 ¾
15 25 35 45 ⅕ ⅖ ⅗ ⅘
38 58 78 ⅜ ⅝ ⅞
0s 1s … 9s ₀ ₁ … ₉
0S 1S … 9S nS ⁰ ¹ … ⁹ ⁿ
1r … cr ⅰ … ⅻ
1R … cR Ⅰ … Ⅻ
1. … 9. ⒈ … ⒐
<+ >+ 《 》
(I )I (" )" 〖 〗 【 】 (lenticular brackets)
<' >' <" >" 「 」 『 』
(note: ⌜ ⌝ ⌞ ⌟ are available in Unicode but not in rfc1345)
Db Dw LZ ◆ ◇ ◊
PL PR Dt UT ◀ ▶ ▼ ▲
Tl Tr dT uT ◁ ▷ ▽ △
FB fS SR sB █ ■ ▬ ▪
lB RB LB TB ▌ ▐ ▄ ▀
Fd Bd ◢ ◣ (digraphs for ◤ and ◥ are not available)
0M 0L 0R 0m OS ● ◐ ◑ ○ □
0_ 〇 (ideographic number zero)
ul uL Ul UL … ┘ ┙ ┚ ┛ …
hh HH vH uh … ─ ━ ┿ ┴ …
<- -> -! -v ← → ↑ ↓
<> UD ↔ ↕
<= => == ⇐ ⇒ ⇔
cC cD cH cS ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠
M8 M2 Mb MX ♪ ♫ ♭ ♯
Fm Ml ♀ ♂
0U ☻
(no digraph) ℯ
c* c+ c= Greek Hebrew (and Arabic) Cyrillic (where ‘c’ is a Latin character)
(e.g. a* and A+ produce α and א)
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Accents and diacritical marks in Unicode are code points that modify the
preceding letter (consult http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0300.pdf).
ò U+0300 combining grave accent
ó U+0301 combining accute accent
ȍ U+030F combining double grave accent
ő U+030B combining double accute accent
ô U+0302 combining circumflex accent
ǒ U+030C combining caron
ȯ U+0307 combining dot above
ö U+0308 combining diaeresis
õ U+0303 combining tilde
ŏ U+0306 combining breve
ȏ U+0311 combining inverted breve
o̊ U+030A combining ring above
o̬ U+032C combining caron below
o̭ U+032D combining circumflex accent below
ọ U+0323 combining dot below
o̤ U+0324 combining diaeresis below
o̰ U+0330 combining tilde below
o̮ U+032E combining breve below
o̯ U+032F combining inverted breve below
o̥ U+0325 combining ring below
o̦ U+0326 combining comma below
o̧ U+0327 combining cedilla
ō U+0304 combining macron
o̅ U+0305 combining overline
o̿ U+033F combining double overline
o̱ U+0331 combining macron below
o̲ U+0332 combining low line
o̳ U+0333 combining double low line
o̵ U+0335 combining short stroke overlay
o̶ U+0336 combining long stroke overlay
o̷ U+0337 combining short solidus overlay
o̸ U+0338 combining long solidus overlay
o̽ U+033D combining x above
o̪ U+032A combining bridge below
o̺ U+033A combining inverted bridge below
o͆ U+0346 combining bridge above
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Example of Greek ρ (digraph ‘r*’), root (digraph ‘RT’), overline diacritic
(character-by-numeric ‘u0305’), and upper index ² (digraph ‘2S’):
ρ = √x̅²̅+̅y̅²̅
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Other:
The code(s) representing an individual character can be displayed by typing ‘ga’
while over that character.
The whole file can be displayed (and edited) in hex, in parallel to the text, by
issuing ‘:%!xxd’. For reversing back to text editing mode, ‘:%!xxd -r’.
Also consult :he edit-binary.
\Z ignore differences in Unicode combining characters (in regexes)
<Ctrl-r>r paste & interpret the contents of register ‘r’ (insert mode)
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For some utf-8 samples, see also http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/examples
and particularly http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/examples/UTF-8-demo.txt.