Use the norm Command for Repetitive Text Tasks

Vim macros are great, but they can become tedious if you need to repeat the macro over and over again on multiple lines. norm comes in super handy in these cases! You can use it to operate on every line, or you can apply it to a visual select range.

* one,
* two,
* three,
* four,

Given a file like above and I want to change just the lines with text two, three, by replacing the * with a - and change the ending comma to a semicolon, I can visual select those lines (Shift + V), enter command mode with : and run:

:'<,'>norm 0s-^[$s;

Let's break it down:

• '<,'> is the visual selection range
• norm is the norm command
• 0s- replaces the first character of the line with -
• ^[ is actually not typed directly but is an escaped ESC char inserted by Ctrl + V, Esc. This allows you to re-enter command mode inside norm mode.
• $s' replaces the last character of the line with ;

After running the command, the file should look like:

* one,
- two;
- three;
* four,