Vim number increment shortcut

Option 1

First insert 1. at the start of the first line.

Go to the start of the second line and go into record mode with qa.

Press the following key sequence:

i                           # insert mode
<Ctrl-Y><Ctrl-Y><Ctrl-Y>    # copy the first few characters from the line above  
<ESC>                       # back to normal mode
0                           # go back to the start of the line
<Ctrl-A>                    # increment the number
j                           # down to the next line
q                           # stop recording

Now you can play back the recording with @a (the first time; for subsequent times, you can do @@ to repeat the last-executed macro) and it will add a new incremented number to the start of each line.

Option 2

Here’s an easy way to increase multiple line numbers, without recording a macro:

Make a blockwise, visual selection on the first character of each list item:

<Ctrl-V>2j

Insert a 0. at the beginning of these lines:

I0. <Esc>

Re-select the visual selection (which is now all of the 0s) with gv and increment them as a sequence g<Ctrl-A>:

gvg<Ctrl-A>

The entire sequence:

<Ctrl-V>2jI0.<Esc>gvg<Ctrl-A>

Helpful vi commands

• Ctrl-Y (Copy and paste character from above line)
• Ctrl-A (Increment selected number by one)
• Ctrl-V (Blockwise visual selection)
• gv (Repeat last visual selection)
• g<Ctrl-A> (Increment multiple selected numbers by one)
• qa (Start recording q on ‘a’ register)
• @a (Play recording from ‘a’ register)
• @@ (Play last recording)