Enabling/Disabling Line Numbers in Vim

Enabling

This will display line numbers along the left side of a window:

:set number

or:

:set nu

Disabling

This will turn off the line number display:

:set nonumber

or:

:set nonu

or:

:set nu!

Creating a Mapping to Toggle Line Numbers

You can also define a mapping to toggle the option, for example:

:nmap <C-N><C-N> :set invnumber<CR>

By pressing Ctrl-N twice in normal mode, Vim toggles between showing and hiding line numbers.

Enabling Line Numbers on Startup

To enable line numbers on startup, simply add the following to your .vimrc

 set number

or:

set nu

Adding Line Numbers Only to Certain Files

You may only want to have line numbers on certain files (like code files) and not have them enabled on other buffers (like your NERD Tree window). If so, you can add the following code to line 5 of your ftplugin.vim file (NOTE: On *nix systems, it is located at /usr/share/vim/vim73/ftplugin.vim):

set number

or:

set nu

Changing Gutter Column Width

If you have Vim version 7 or greater, you can change the width of the "gutter" column used for numbering:

:set numberwidth=3

You can use the number column for the text of wrapped lines:

:set cpoptions+=n

Finally, you can change the color used for the line numbers. For example:

:highlight LineNr term=bold cterm=NONE ctermfg=DarkGrey ctermbg=NONE gui=NONE guifg=DarkGrey guibg=NONE

References

• :help 'number'
• :help 'numberwidth' (Vim 7 and greater only)
• :help :highlight

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