When using vi in Ubuntu virtual machines – a client asked me if they could stop it displaying in colour – which they found hard to read and find what they were looking for. So this simple tip is how to toggle the setting in and off.
Press the esc key and then enter :syntax off and press return
This will disable it and display the text in white.
to turn back on
Press the esc key and then enter :syntax oN and press return
However this change is only for the current vi editing session and will revert to “normal” coloured unless a permanent change is made in the .vimrc file to either have syntax off or the default syntax on