How paste text from firefox to GVIM on ubuntu11?

The way I usually do this is to ensure that vim is in insert mode, select the text in Firefox (or whatever) and then middle click in vim - this is called the X11 selection, and is very handy.

You can also use the * and + buffers. So to paste from the X11 buffer into vim you can do (inside vim):

"*p

And if you have done Ctrl+C (or right click and "Copy") then you could do:

"+p

(Note that as usual, lower case p will paste after the cursor, and upper case P will paste before the cursor).

Note that "* and "+ work both ways. So if you have selected text in visual mode in vim, you can copy it to the X11 selection using "*y or to the standard clipboard using "+y.

I used "Shift-Insert" earlier today with text copied from firefox and pasted into a terminal (vi) for a co-worker stuck with the same issue on 11.. Not sure what needs to be changed in gvim to sync up the clipboards.

@Hamish's answer is nice and works fine for VIM. Another way, perhaps more general, is to use xclip (apt-get install xclip).

Run this (or, more realistically, bind it to some key):

 xclip -selection clipboard -o | xclip -selection primary -i

It will take your clipboard (where things end up after pressing ctrl-C, generally) and move it to your primary X selection (what you paste when you press the middle mouse button). So you can then press the middle mouse button to paste into VIM, GVIM or any other application.