If you wanted to grab 10 lines from /var/log/messages, starting at the first line that has "pjungwlr" in it, you could:

  $ less /var/log/msgs
  /pjungwlr^M
  ^G (note line informational line numbers)
  v (launch vi)
  [double check your line #s, etc]
  :d1,. (delete from 1st line, to current line)
  10j (go down 10 lines)
  :d,$ (delete to EOF)
  :w my_newfile
  :q

This is such a common problem there's a stackoverflow article on it.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17908555/printing-with-se...

(Actually, there's probably more than one despite their really good duplication grooming, but this was the first hit.)

`v` was the missing key for me. Looks like it even preserves my position in the file. Thanks!

Usually I `ma|acat > newfile` in less, which saves by default a whole screenfull. There must be a better way to do this in less.