How can I make quick environment or command changes in LaTeX

Question

I have a large body of LaTeX text (a whole book) which has \textit{} and \textbf{} commands interchanged in some places. In other places they are completely missing. How do I create quick shortcuts in Vim so that I can do the following:

• Switch between \textit{} to \textbf{} and vice versa without affecting what is inside {}.
• Wrap word or phrase under cursor into either of the \textit{} or \textbf{} commands.
• Remove either the \textit{} or \textbf{} commands where they are not needed but put in by mistake.

Answer 1

If you use the vimtex plugin, you can:

1. Change an enclosing command using csc:

   

2. According to the help, a ysc corresponding to the commands offered by surround.vim isn't available, but can be added. See :h vimtex-faq-surround:

                                                             *vimtex-faq-surround*
   Q: |vimtex| provides `dse`, `dsc`, `cse`, and `csc`.  These seem to be inspired by
      |surround.vim|.  Does |vimtex| also provide the corresponding `yse` and `ysc`?
   A: The mentioned mappings are indeed inspired by |surround.vim|.  However,
      |vimtex| does not provide `yse` and `ysc`.  If you use |surround.vim|, then
      the asked for mappings may be easily added if one adds the following lines
      to ones `vimrc` file: >
   
     augroup latexSurround
        autocmd!
        autocmd FileType tex call s:latexSurround()
     augroup END
   
     function! s:latexSurround()
        let b:surround_{char2nr("e")}
          \ = "\\begin{\1environment: \1}\n\t\r\n\\end{\1\1}"
        let b:surround_{char2nr("c")} = "\\\1command: \1{\r}"
     endfunction
   <
   

3. Delete an enclosing command using dsc.