"As far as I know from reading the vim list, etc., there is no way "of getting rid of the extra spaces. Either backspace or hit "Ctrl-] once you have unambiguously determined the abbreviation. "For targets and references you must have no surrounding spaces. iunab ,i iunab ,l iunab ,r iunab ,c iunab ,C iunab ,# iunab ,t iunab {+ iunab {- iunab }+ iunab }- iunab ,^