How to break all lines into 78 character long all at once in vim?

(Author: Sherman Chen)

Method 1
========

:set textwidth=78

gggqG

"gg" takes you to the first line, "gq" is the format operator and "G" the motion that jumps to the last line.

Method 2
========

:set textwidth=78 

:1,$g/.*/normal jgwap

Method 3
========

1. :set linebreak
   to recover those broken words at the end of each line into whole words.

2. :set textwidth=78

3. Find a line which is longer than 78 characters, say line #3.  Move the cursor to that line minus one, i.e. 3 - 1 = 2.

4. qaj$aa Backspace Escape q

5. See how many lines the file contains totally, say, 100.

6. gg

7. 100@a Enter

All the lines will become 78 character long now.


Method 4 (which has improved Method 3)
========

1. :set linebreak
   to recover those broken words at the end of each line into whole words.

2. :set textwidth=78

3. Move the cursor to any line which is longer than 78 characters.

4. qa$aa Backspace Escape q

5. :%normal @a

All the lines will become 78 character long now.


(END)