Good method for saving and inserting commonly used snippets

Question

I often need to insert the same text into a file.

My approach has been to put the text into my vimrc as a variable:

let map='<!DOCTYPE map PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Map//EN" "map.dtd">'

And then insert it with Ctrl+r, =map Enter

This works but it somehow feels wrong. It also prevents me from entering long, multiline snippets. Is there a better way to do this?

Edit: I'm open to a solution that uses a plugin, but I'm using an older version of Vim that's missing python and a few other features. I'd prefer a simple solution.

Answer 1

I came across a solution that suits me well, it may be useful for you also. I add some mappings/abbreviations in insert mode starting with \ (or any character you like, and use not all the time):

" use an abbreviation (css debugging)
iabbrev \r *{color: red !important;}

" use a mapping (html doctype insertion)
inoremap \doctype <!DOCTYPE map PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Map//EN" "map.dtd">

" if you want to keep cursor inside tag, use a mapping also
inoremap \td   <td></td><left><left><left><left><left>
" some more mappings

" if you used a mapping starting with \ make sure you can actually type \
inoremap \\ \

The major down point of this is that the mappings you define can overlap other actual words you may want to use, but on the other side you can create a lot of mappings without use of any external plugin.

I noticed that mapping are not displayed while typed, but you can display them with :set showcmd (thanks to a jair lopez comment)