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The original was posted on /r/vim by /u/poja9 on 2024-04-07 21:53:47.

TL;DR

Can I use Vim and plain text files to output digital documentation similar to those made in Google’s and Microsoft’s office suites? I imagine this would be feasible for everything except diagramming software and video editing software. I know some programs allow you to insert images in-line and they show up something like [image-file] in the editor/text and don’t actually render and push everything around.

For the past couple of months I’ve been acutely interested in Vim. This stems from my work environment and the state of computing as a whole these days. This has led me to binging some of Primeagen’s content, a few other Linux/Programming people/communities. I understand it’s a meme- using vim for everything- but… I can kinda see why/how?

I’ve gotten acquainted with the normal mode commands/movements and how to “jump” extremely efficiently. I understand the reasoning and nuances behind capital letters and why they do what they do, or the relationships between things like a/i, w/W, f/t. I also see how valuable using c can be along with the aforementioned normal mode commands and how Vim understands the concepts of not only word/symbol boundaries but even sentences, paragraphs, functions, indentation, etc.

I absolutely hate word processors, Office apps/suites, and the like. I can get by with shortcuts for some functions and features, but for those that don’t have shortcuts I absolutely lose it having to move my mouse to do the thing over and over again. What’s worse is the visual overstimulation of the cluttered “ribbons” and menus and all. What tops it off is how overused these apps are for what are essentially just bullet pointed flat files. The slide decks with a title on page 1 and bullet points on the rest drive me mad.

I’ve seen workflows in which someone had Vim open and they were editing a file in real time with the same file open in another window but it was being “rendered”. It seemed like they were able to create an output of what looked to be a research paper, word processor frills and all. I think this was a Luke Smith video? Anyway, I was wondering how possible this all was as a whole. Can I output proper Word documents, PDFs, powerpoints, spreadsheets, all of that- with a flat file constructed in Vim? Are these extensions of Vim/NeoVim or separate utilities altogether?