This is what the Vim manual has to say about Vimtutor:
*01.3* Using the Vim tutor *tutor* *vimtutor* Instead of reading the text (boring!) you can use the vimtutor to learn your first Vim commands. This is a 30 minute tutorial that teaches the most basic Vim functionality hands-on. On Unix and MS-Windows, if Vim has been properly installed, you can start it from the shell: vimtutor This will make a copy of the tutor file, so that you can edit it without the risk of damaging the original. There are a few translated versions of the tutor. To find out if yours is available, use the two-letter language code. For French: vimtutor fr For OpenVMS, if Vim has been properly installed, you can start vimtutor from a VMS prompt with: @VIM:vimtutor Optionally add the two-letter language code as above. On other systems, you have to do a little work: 1. Copy the tutor file. You can do this with Vim (it knows where to find it): vim -u NONE -c 'e $VIMRUNTIME/tutor/tutor' -c 'w! TUTORCOPY' -c 'q' This will write the file "TUTORCOPY" in the current directory. To use a translated version of the tutor, append the two-letter language code to the filename. For French: vim -u NONE -c 'e $VIMRUNTIME/tutor/tutor.fr' -c 'w! TUTORCOPY' -c 'q' 2. Edit the copied file with Vim: vim -u NONE -c "set nocp" TUTORCOPY The extra arguments make sure Vim is started in a good mood. 3. Delete the copied file when you are finished with it: del TUTORCOPY