How to replace a word with spaces

Question

Suppose I have the following text:

This is a test of the emergency broadcast system

What I want to do is delete the word "test" and replace it with four spaces:

This is a      of the emergency broadcast system

Currently what I do is:

cw<Space><Space><Space><Space><Esc>

Is there a built in way to do this, or should I look into writing a macro?

Answer 1

Move cursor anywhere on the word "test" and then viwr (the last one is a space). Saves at least two key strokes.

• v start visual selection
• iw text object "inner word" (see :help text-object, read the entire section, very useful!)
• r replace
• (space) with spaces