Vim visual mode to system clipboard

To save a lot of clipboard text to file quickly, you can run cat > file.txt, paste the contents, then press Ctrl-d.

If you have xsel installed, you can do :r !xsel to insert the "primary" (aka. "mouse") selection in Vim, or :r !xsel -b to insert the "clipboard" (Ctrl-c) buffer. You can also save the selection directly to a file with xsel >file.txt or xsel -b >file.txt. This removes the need for separate pasting + EOF actions, and avoids printing the entire copy buffer in the terminal.

If you have no xsel but xclip, the corresponding commands are xclip -out for the primary selection, or xclip -out -selection clipboard for the clipboard buffer.

If you want to select lines use linewise Visual mode (V). If you want to select characters use character Visual mode (v). If you want to select a rectangular block use blockwise Visual mode (Ctrl-V).

Deleting a visual rectangular block does not delete the lines. This is the expected behavior. If you want to select lines visually and delete them, use linewise visual mode (V), select the lines with j and k (or down-arrow and up-arrow), then press d to delete them.