How to stop auto indenting

Tip 330 Printable Monobook Previous Next

created September 20, 2002 · complexity intermediate · author Francis · version 6.0

---

Sometimes when pasting formated text (source code or HTML etc) into a buffer, Vim indents it again, so that lines will be padded with too much space.

See VimTip906 for the correct way to avoid this problem (the following paragraph from the original tip 330 is correct, but tip 906 shows the intended way to turn 'paste' off and on).

Setting nocindent, noautoindent, nosmartindent still cannot stop this. All you need to do is :set paste, then paste your stuff, and then :set nopaste again.

TODO Merge useful info from this tip into VimTip906. Need a better explanation that the problem is only seen on systems which emulate pasting by inserting text into the keyboard buffer, so Vim thinks the text has been typed by the user. If you use Vim commands to paste text, the problem does not occur.

References

• :help 'indentexpr'
• :help 'pt'

Comments

I have not verified these, but I only tried to clean up DG12 19:06, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

---

Adding the following lines to your .vimrc will turn off ALL indenting for the given file types:

autocmd BufEnter *.html setlocal indentexpr=
autocmd BufEnter *.htm setlocal indentexpr=
autocmd BufEnter *.xml setlocal indentexpr=
autocmd BufEnter *.xsd setlocal indentexpr=

Change the above to the file type (extension) necessary.

---

Put the following line in the file .vimrc in your home directory:

filetype off

---

modify $VIMRUNTIME/filetype.vim,  find the section for the file type in question and start commenting or deleting sections.

---

:set pastetoggle=<F11>

---

:set noai
:set noautoindent

renamed the html.vim file in the indent directory to html_vim.

Syntax highlighting still works but the indenting is disabled

---

Add in your vimrc:

" Paste Mode On/Off
map <F11> :call Paste_on_off()<CR>
set pastetoggle=<F11>
let paste_mode = 0 " 0 = normal, 1 = paste
func! Paste_on_off()
  if g:paste_mode == 0
    set paste
    let g:paste_mode = 1
  else
    set nopaste
    let g:paste_mode = 0
  endif
  return
endfunc

F11 will toggle 'paste' mode.

map <F11> :set invpaste<CR>

F11 - Shift-Insert - F11 to paste from the system clipboard (linux). --- With set mouse=a option (which allows using the mouse for visual select, scrolling etc)

things don't behave as well as before when pasting from the clipboard (middle click won't paste etc).

" toggle paste / mouse mode
map <F11> :call InvertPasteAndMouse()<CR>
fun! InvertPasteAndMouse()
  if &mouse == ''
    set mouse=a | set nopaste
    echo "mouse mode on, paste mode off"
  else
    set mouse= | set paste
    echo "mouse mode off, paste mode on"
  endif
endfunction

F11 to toggle paste (& mouse) mode.

---

gvim for Windows, deleting all the contents of the "indent" folder

---

Windows :

:set nocindent<CR>
:set cinoptions=<CR>

---

Add all these options at the bottom of your vimrc file. If you want the settings in the default vimrc file that comes with the official distribution of vim but want autoindening turned off, place these options at the bottom of the vimrc file.

set nocindent
set nosmartindent
set noautoindent
set indenexpr=
filetype indent off
filetype plugin indent off

---

force vim to use my ~/.vimrc file by aliasing vim to 'vim -u ~/.vimrc'. .rc files in a user's home directory should be read last and should override other settings, this doesn't seem to be the case for vim.

---

filetype off

---

rename "[program files]/vim/vim63/indent" to "indent_"

---

renaming /usr/share/vim/indent directory to indent_

.vimrc isn't the last resource file to be handled settings are being overwritten by resource files for the different languages later

---

for copy-paste'ing formatted text have a look at VimTip21

---

"set paste" in ~/.vimrc 

---

filetype indent off
set smartindent

for editing PHP or any programming language that is embedded in HTML without having the indenting on the HTML.

---

If you are editing PHP code containing HTML and don't want HTML to be indented you may use my PHP indent script (that only indents PHP and javascript code, non-PHP code remain as it is):

You can find a detail description of what it can do there: script#1120 or http://www.2072productions.com/?to=phpindent.txt

---

set nosmartindent

---

Mac-only solution:

:r !pbpaste

fix the line-endings:

:r !pbpaste | perl -pe 'tr/\r/\n/'

---

:set pastetoggle=<F11> to vimrc

---

filetype plugin indent off

with this line alone, vi will use the indentation of current line
if current indentation level is 2 (=8 columns using "set tabstop=4"), the next line inserted will also be at indentation 2 (i.e  o, O, and <CR>). 

---

:set noai

doesn't work for pasting

The shortest solution is above:

map <F11> :set invpaste<CR>

and use F11 shift-insert F11 for a 3-keypress insertion on Linux.

---

" disable 'smart' indent

set nocindent
set nosmartindent
set autoindent
set indentexpr=
filetype indent off
filetype plugin indent off

which allows the simple and useful "make the next line the same indent level as the previous line" sort of autoindent, but disables all the annoying so-called 'smart' indentation which is confusing and makes wrong assumptions about my preferred style.

---

(vim 6.4, Windows installer, default everything)

Default behaviour in edit mode (PHP file type) is for the first, and only the first, press of the ">" key to indent the current line by several spaces. Subsequent key presses just insert the ">" symbol. Leaving and then re-entering edit mode, again causes the first ">" key press to further indent the line.

---

revise C:\Program Files\Vim\vim64\indent\php.vim so that the line:

setlocal indentkeys+=0=,0),=EO,=>

is replaced by:

setlocal indentkeys+=0=,0),=EO

---

/indent/ then editing the file for the extension that i wanted to turn autoindent off.

commented out anything set using setlocal indentexpr, and setlocal indentkeys.

html.vim file now looks like this: ...

setlocal indentexpr= "HtmlIndentGet(v:lnum)
setlocal indentkeys= "o,O,*<Return>,<>>,<bs>,{,}

... (note: the double qoute comments out the rest of the line)

---

placed in .vimrc, got rid of most of the autoindentation stuff:

filetype plugin indent off

not when editing a .txt file, 'vim -u ~/.vimrc' shell alias did fix the problem, but it also broke other settings.

using Gentoo: rename /etc/vim

---