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Suppose I open multiple files in vim like this:

vim a.cc b.cc x.cc

vim will open all files, but show only one at a time, the rest being accessible using the :next command.

After having these files opened, how to spread them into a split view, like if I had used the -O flag when opening them? Also, it would be nice to know how can I spread them into tabs too.

1 Answer 1

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Here are a bunch of helpful commands for you:

To open every buffer in a horizontal split:

:sball

To open every buffer in a vertical split:

:vert sball

You can do the same thing with tabs, e.g, to open every buffer into its own tab:

:bufdo tab split

If you would like more control over how they get split, you can do this individually.

First, list every open buffer with:

:ls

Then you can choose what to do for each buffer.

To open buffer N in a horizontal split:

:sb N

sb is an abbreviation of :sbuffer

To open buffer N in a vertical split:

:vert sb N

To open buffer N in a new tab:

:tabedit | bN
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  • 1
    Don't forget about :sball. :)
    – Tumbler41
    Aug 26, 2016 at 20:29
  • From your answer and the comment above, I could derive what I actually wanted: :vert sball. Thanks folks.
    – Kira
    Aug 26, 2016 at 20:32
  • @Kira I was actually just about to add that into my answer, but still I'm glad that I could help!
    – DJMcMayhem
    Aug 26, 2016 at 20:33
  • BTW, I feel :bufdo tab split does not quite do what you intend to do. If you open files like vim a b c, then run that command, you will end up with 4 open files, a b c c. IDK why though, but I tested it here.
    – Kira
    Aug 26, 2016 at 20:36
  • @Kira You're right, I'm not sure what causes that. You could do :exe "bufdo tab split" | q, but that seems kinda hacky.
    – DJMcMayhem
    Aug 26, 2016 at 20:39

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