title: How to remove quotes surrounding the first two columns in Vim?
body: <p>Say I have the following style of lines in a text file:</p>
  
  <pre><code>"12" "34" "some text     "
  "56" "78" "some more text"
  .
  .
  .
  etc.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I want to be able to remove the quotes surrounding the first two columns. What is the best way to do this with Vim (I'm currently using gVim)?</p>
  
  <p>I figured out how to at least delete the beginning quote of each line by using visual mode and then enter the command <code>'&lt;,'&gt;s!^"!!</code></p>
  
  <p>I'm wondering if there is a way to select an entire column of text (one character going straight down the file... or more than 1, but in this case I would only want one). If it is possible, then would you be able to apply the <kbd>x</kbd> command (delete the character) to the entire column.</p>
  
  <p>There could be better ways to do it. I'm looking for any suggestions.</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <h3>Update</h3>
  
  <p>Just and FYI, I combined a couple of the suggestions. My <code>_vimrc</code> file now has the following line in it:</p>
  
  <pre><code>let @q=':%s/"\([0-9]*\)"/\1/g^M'   
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>(Note: THE <code>^M</code> is <kbd>CTRL</kbd><kbd>Q</kbd> + <kbd>Enter</kbd> to emulate pressing the Enter key after running the command)</p>
  
  <p>Now I can use a macro via <kbd>@</kbd><kbd>q</kbd> to remove all of the quotes from both number columns in the file.</p>