russian.txt For Vim version 9.2. Last change: 2026 Feb 14 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Vassily Ragosin Russian language localization and support in Vim russian Russian 1. Introduction russian-intro 2. Russian keymaps russian-keymap 3. Localization russian-l18n 4. Known issues russian-issues ============================================================================== 1. Introduction russian-intro Russian language is supported perfectly well in Vim. You can type and view Russian text just as any other, without the need to tweak the settings. ============================================================================== 2. Russian keymaps russian-keymap To switch between languages you can use your system native keyboard switcher, or use one of the Russian keymaps, included in the Vim distribution. For example, :set keymap=russian-jcukenwin In the latter case, you can switch between languages even if you do not have system Russian keyboard or independently from a system-wide keyboard settings. See 'keymap'. You can also map a key to switch between keyboards, if you choose the latter option. See :map . For your convenience, to avoid switching between keyboards, when you need to enter Normal mode command, you can also set 'langmap' option: :set langmap=ФИСВУАПРШОЛДЬТЩЗЙКЫЕГМЦЧНЯ;ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ, фисвуапршолдьтщзйкыегмцчня;abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz This is in utf-8, you cannot read this if your 'encoding' is not utf-8. You have to type this command in one line, it is wrapped for the sake of readability. ============================================================================== 3. Localization russian-l18n If you wish to use messages, help files, menus and other items translated to Russian, you will need to install the RuVim Language Pack, available in different codepages from http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/ruvim/ Make sure that your Vim is at least 6.2.506 and use ruvim 0.5 or later for automatic installs. Vim also needs to be compiled with +gettext feature for user interface items translations to work. After downloading an archive from RuVim project, unpack it into your $VIMRUNTIME directory. We recommend using UTF-8 archive. In order to use the Russian documentation, make sure you have set the 'helplang' option to "ru". ============================================================================== 4. Known issues russian-issues -- If you are using Russian message translations in Win32 console, then you may see the output produced by "vim --help", "vim --version" commands and Win32 console window title appearing in a wrong codepage. This problem is related to a bug in GNU gettext library and may be fixed in the future releases of gettext. ============================================================================== vim:tw=78:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl: