In VIM, how do I break one really long line into multiple lines?

Question

Say I have a super long line in the VIM editor (say around 300+ characters). How would I break that up into multiple lines so that the word boundaries roughly break at 80 chara

Answer 1

For solid lines of text highlight the area using v in normal mode, then press

:s/\v(.{80})/\1\r/g

This will add a newline at the end of every 80th character.

:s/       replaces within the current select
\v        uses regular expressions
(.{80})   selects 80 characters & placed them into group one
\1\r      replaces group one with group one and a newline