How do I remove first 5 characters in each line in a text file using vi?

Question

How do I remove the first 5 characters in each line in a text file?
I have a file like this:

   4 Alabama    4 Alaska    4 Arizona    4 Arkansas    4 California   54 Can    8 Carolina    4 Colorado    4 Connecticut    8 Dakota    4 Delaware   97 Do    4 Florida    4 Hampshire   47 Have    4 Hawaii 

I'd like to remove the number and the space at the beginning of each line in my txt file.

Answer 1

:%s/^.\{0,5\}// should do the trick. It also handles cases where there are less than 5 characters.

Answer 2

Use the regular expression ^..... to match the first 5 characters of each line. use it in a global substitution:

:%s/^.....//