How can I avoid copying line numbers to my clipboard from vim?

DeepDeadpool 0
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I like having numbers and relative numbers set in my vim, but I want to be able to select text without grabbing the line numbers.

enter image description here

Were I to paste this text with ctrl-v it would contain the line numbers which is not what I want.

  8 Plug 'michal-h21/vim-zettel'
  7 Plug 'mattn/calendar-vim'
  6 call plug#end()
  5 
  4 let wiki_1 = {}
  3 let wiki_1.path = '~/vimwiki/'

This question does not have a solution. I want to be able to select the text with my mouse without typing additional settings into the vim window before copying.

So, without changing settings mid-operation, is there a way to grab just the text and put it on my clipboard?

multiline clipboard mouse copy-paste vim
2 Answers

If you want to be able to do so with the mouse, you have to ask that to your terminal.

I use URxvt, for instance, and I can select a rectangle of text as I like by holding Alt while I click and then move the mouse, so I can just avoid selecting the numbers: enter image description here

A better option is to become aware of the registers + (clipboard) and * (primary selection) and make use of them. (See :help quote+, :help registers and other pages liked from there.)

For instance, if you want to copy lines from 5 to 10 (the exact lines you have highlighted in your screenshot), you would move to line 5, e.g. via 5gg, and then hit "+y10gg to store them in the clipboard that you can paste in other programs often via Ctrl-V.

Enlico0

First problem: selecting text without line numbers

Your terminal emulator can't tell a line number from genuine buffer content so you can't rely on it to be smarter than you about what it copies. FWIW, you would have the same problem with vertical window separators, the fold column, etc.

If you absolutely need to select text with your mouse, then you should set the :help 'mouse' option in your vimrc. A good, general purpose, value would be a:

set mouse=a

This has the effect of disabling your terminal emulator's mouse handling to let Vim, which knows where line numbers are, control it.

Second problem: yanking the selected text to system clipboard

You can check if your Vim was built with clipboard support with:

:echo has('clipboard')

A 1 means that you have clipboard support and that you should be able to do "+y or "*y on the selected text. "+y yanks to the system clipboard (like Ctrl-c/Ctrl-v/etc.) and "*y is X11's primary selection (right click, etc.). If you feel those two extra keystrokes are too much, see :help 'clipboard'.

A 0 means that you don't have clipboard support and that you should get a different package. Which one and how depends on your operating system.

romainl0
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