How to save as a new file and keep working on the original one in Vim?

Question

Whenever I use the :sav command, it saves the file with a new name and opens the new file open in Vim.

Is it possible to save the file with a new name but keep the original one open for editing?

Answer 1

Use the :w command with a filename:

:w other_filename

Answer 2

Thanks for the answers. Now I know that there are two ways of "SAVE AS" in Vim.

Assumed that I'm editing hello.txt.

• :w world.txt will write hello.txt's content to the file world.txt while keeping hello.txt as the opened buffer in vim.
• :sav world.txt will first write hello.txt's content to the file world.txt, then close buffer hello.txt, finally open world.txt as the current buffer.

Answer 3

After save new file press

Ctrl-6

This is shortcut to alternate file

Answer 4

The following command will create a copy in a new window. So you can continue see both original file and the new file.

:w {newfilename} | sp #