Something I recently learned that is really cool: :<area>!<command> will export the <area> to <comand> and then replace <area> with the output of the <command

Something I recently learned that is really cool: :<area>!<command> will export the <area> to <comand> and then replace <area> with the output of the <command>. So you can do: :%!sort # Sort the entire file. :.!awk '{ print $1 }' # Replace the current line with the first word/column. So much power with this really simple set of commands. You can also highlight the an area using visual mode, and then just type ':!<command>' and it will autofill in the area for you.