A range can be specified using line numbers or special characters, as in these examples: The :s/// command substitutes in the specified lines. The :w command writes a file. On its own, :w writes all lines from the current buffer to the file name for the buffer. Given a range and a file name, :w writes only the specified lines to the specified file. The example above creates file single.txt containing the current line. :.,.+5s/old/new/g