Recently I was rewriting my dotfiles and I wanted to look up what all the various Vim settings I’d collected over the years controlled.

The slowest but most logical way was to type :help <setting name>.

That works, sure, but it is slow, cumbersome, and prone to misspelling the setting name. Luckily there is a quicker and easier way.

In normal mode, place your cursor within the setting name and press <leader>K, that’s captial k.

set syntax
      ^ press <leader>K when your cursor is here, for example

Vim opens the help section for the word under your cursor in a new split. When you’re finished, type :q to quit and the split will close.

If you want more quick Vim tips, then I highly recommend Mastering Vim Quickly. You can sign up for the free weekly newsletter that contains useful tips and no fluff, or you can purchase the Mastering Vim Quickly ebook which is similarly lean but packed full of information.