The original tip (below) was for a "more"-style pager. It is kept here because it explains the principles nicely. First, create a vimrc like the following – I called mine ~/.vimrc.more " No compatibility – necessary for mappings to work. set nocompatible " Status line set laststatus=0 set cmdheight=1 set nomodifiable " Only in version 6.0 set readonly " My xterms have a navy-blue background, so I need this line too. set background=dark " Turn syntax on syntax enable " No menu bar and tool bar set guioptions=aiMr " Key bindings. nmap b nmap q :q! nmap nmap " To type the following line, type *two* C-V's followed by two spaces. This " is how you map the spacebar. nmap ^V