I followed this guide to automatically insert different header templates into new files of different types based on the file extension:
It works great! I have a custom header for python source files that gets inserted automatically when I open a new .py file.
I want to do a similar thing so that a basic LaTeX template is inserted when I open a new .tex file...
Except I can't get it to work...
My ~/.vimrc says this:
autocmd bufnewfile *.tex so /home/steve/Work/tex_template.txt
and my tex_template.txt says this:
:insert
\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
.
but when I open a new file like this:
vim test.tex
(where test.tex does not exist already)
I get this:
"test.tex" [New File]
Error detected while processing /home/steve/Work/tex_template.txt:
line 2:
E492: Not an editor command: :insertdocumentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
Press ENTER or type command to continue
The problem appears to be with the backslash at the start of the line because if I delete the backslash from tex_template.txt the the new file opens up with documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article} in it. Except I need the backslash because otherwise it's not a tex command sequence.
If you look at :help :insert it says this:
Watch out for lines starting with a backslash, see line-continuation.
Following the link to line-continuation explains that the \ is a continuation character which can be overridden by passing the C flag to cpoptions.
It should work if you change your template as follows:
:set cpo+=C
:insert
\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
.
:set cpo-=C