How to paste yanked text into Vim command line?

In normal mode, hit ":p. The last command you used in vim is pasted into your buffer.
Let's decompose: " is a Normal mode command that lets you select what register is to be used during the next yank, delete or paste operation. So ": selects the colon register (storing last command). Then p is a command you already know, it pastes the contents of the register.

cf. :help " , :help quote_:

You're editing a VimL file (for instance your .vimrc ) and would like to execute a couple of consecutive lines right now: yj:@"Enter.
Here, yj yanks current and next line (this is because j is a linewise motion but this is out of scope of this answer) into the default register (also known as the unnamed register). Then the :@ Ex command plays Ex commands stored in the register given as argument, and " is how you refer to the unnamed register. Also see the top of this answer, which is related.

Do not confuse " used here (which is a register name) with the " from the previous example, which was a Normal-mode command.

cf. :help :@ and :help quote_quote

Insert the last search pattern into your file in Insert mode, or into the command line, with Ctrl-R, /.

cf. :help quote_/ , help i_CTRL-R

Corollary: Keep your search pattern but add an alternative: / Ctrl-R, / |alternative .

You've selected two words in the middle of a line in visual mode, yanked them with y , they are in the unnamed register. Now you want to open a new line just below where you are, with those two words: :pu . This is shorthand for :put " . The :put command, like many Ex commands, works only linewise.

cf. :help :put

You could also have done: :call setreg('"', @", 'V') then p . The setreg function sets the register of which the name is given as first argument (as a string), initializes it with the contents of the second argument (and you can use registers as variables with the name @x where x is the register name in VimL), and turns it into the mode specified in the third argument, V for linewise, nothing for characterwise and literal ^V for blockwise.

cf. :help setreg() . The reverse functions are getreg() and getregtype() .

If you have recorded a macro with qa ... q , then :echo @a will tell you what you have typed, and @a will replay the macro (probably you knew that one, very useful in order to avoid repetitive tasks)

cf. :help q , help @

Corollary from the previous example: If you have 8go in the clipboard, then @+ will play the clipboard contents as a macro, and thus go to the 8th byte of your file. Actually this will work with almost every register. If your last inserted string was dd in Insert mode, then @. will (because the . register contains the last inserted string) delete a line. (Vim documentation is wrong in this regard, since it states that the registers # , % , : and . will only work with p , P , :put and Ctrl-R).

cf. :help @

Don't confuse :@ (command that plays Vim commands from a register) and @ (normal-mode command that plays normal-mode commands from a register).

Notable exception is @: . The command register does not contain the initial colon neither does it contain the final carriage return. However in Normal mode, @: will do what you expect, interpreting the register as an Ex command, not trying to play it in Normal mode. So if your last command was :e , the register contains e but @: will reload the file, not go to end of word.

cf. :help @:

Show what you will be doing in Normal mode before running it: @='dd' Enter. As soon as you hit the = key, Vim switches to expression evaluation: as you enter an expression and hit Enter, Vim computes it, and the result acts as a register content. Of course the register = is read-only, and one-shot. Each time you start using it, you will have to enter a new expression.

cf. :help quote_=

Corollary: If you are editing a command, and you realize that you should need to insert into your command line some line from your current buffer: don't press Esc! Use Ctrl-R =getline(58) Enter. After that you will be back to command line editing, but it has inserted the contents of the 58th line.

Define a search pattern manually: :let @/ = 'foo'

cf. :help :let

Note that doing that, you needn't to escape / in the pattern. However you need to double all single quotes of course.

Copy all lines beginning with foo , and afterwards all lines containing bar to clipboard, chain these commands: qaq (resets the a register storing an empty macro inside it), :g/^foo/y A , :g/bar/y A , :let @+ = @a .

Using a capital register name makes the register work in append mode

Better, if Q has not been remapped by mswin.vim , start Ex mode with Q , chain those “colon commands” which are actually better called “Ex commands”, and go back to Normal mode by typing visual .

cf. :help :g , :help :y , :help Q

Double-space your file: :g/^/put _ . This puts the contents of the black hole register (empty when reading, but writable, behaving like /dev/null ) linewise, after each line (because every line has a beginning!).

Add a line containing foo before each line: :g/^/-put ='foo' . This is a clever use of the expression register. Here, - is a synonym for .-1 (cf. :help :range ). Since :put puts the text after the line, you have to explicitly tell it to act on the previous one.

Copy the entire buffer to the system clipboard: :%y+ .

cf. :help :range (for the % part) and :help :y .

If you have misrecorded a macro, you can type :let @a=' Ctrl-R =replace(@a,"'","''",'g') Enter ' and edit it. This will modify the contents of the macro stored in register a , and it's shown here how you can use the expression register to do that.

If you did dddd , you might do uu in order to undo. With p you could get the last deleted line. But actually you can also recover up to 9 deletes with the registers @1 through @9 .

Even better, if you do "1P , then . in Normal mode will play "2P , and so on.

cf. :help . and :help quote_number

If you want to insert the current date in Insert mode: Ctrl-R =strftime('%y%m%d') Enter.

cf. :help strftime()

@ in normal mode command that interprets the contents of a register as normal-mode keystrokes (except when you use : register, that contains last played command without the initial colon: in this case it replays the command as if you also re-typed the colon and the final return key).

" in normal mode command that helps you select a register for yank, paste, delete, correct, etc.