September 24, 2020
You may already be aware of digraphs, which let you insert special characters using combinations of two keys (:h digraphs-use).
However, Vim also lets you insert arbitrary Unicode characters, as long as your font/terminal emulator supports them.
That includes emoji.
When you’re in insert mode, you can type <c-v> (or <c-q>), followed by a letter specifying the format of the number representing the character.
The letters are:
255o/O: octal 3-digit value, max 377 (same as 255 in decimal)x/X: hex 2-digit value, max ff (same as 255 in decimal)u: hex 4-digit value, max ffff (same as 65535 in decimal)U: hex 8-digit value, max 7fffffffAt any point, you can enter a non-digit (such as space or escape) to finish inserting the character, and whatever you entered until that point will be interpreted.
For more info, look at :h i_ctrl-v_digit.
As an example, let’s say I want to enter the Arabic Bismillah ligature, which is one of the widest I’ve ever seen.
I’ll search the Unicode Character Table, where I’ll find that its value is 0xFDFD.
Then, in Vim, I’ll enter insert mode, and type: <c-v>ufdfd (u for 4-digit hexadecimal; I could also use U and press space/escape after the last d).
Et voila: ﷽ (yep, that’s one character).
Another example: what if I want a “no mobile phones” pictograph?
Again, after searching the table, I’ll find that the value is 0x1F4F5.
So, in Vim, I’ll go to insert mode and type: <c-v>U1f4f5<space> (U for 8-digit hex, <space> to mark the end of the character).
And there we have it: 📵.
As an aside, you can find out the Unicode value of the character under the cursor by typing ga in normal mode, or using the :ascii ex command.
If you’re more used to Latex, a useful plugin is latex-unicoder.vim, which converts a typed Latex command to its corresponding Unicode symbol (if there is one).