I have a large text file, part of which I am trying to edit in vim. I use / to search/grep through the exact string (it's an sgml file) and I do find it somewhere. During the search it tells me where the pattern is in relation to the length of the document (25-30% or more) but once I take out the pattern, there is no way to tell how big the document is. Is there a way, maybe some configuration variable or something that I need for vim to parse and share with me the location in percentage form whenever I'm in the document. 
figuring out location in a document using vim.
debian;vim;documents
I believe you're looking for the ruler option.Setting it will make Vim display a ruler at the bottom of the screen with information about whereabouts in the file you are currently located.According the help information (:help ruler in Vim), it will display Top if the top of the file is visible, Bot if the end of the file is visible, All if all of the file is visible, or the relative position in the file as a percentage if the document is larger than the current window.  It will also show the current line number and column position.Enable it with :set ruler in Vim, or addset rulerin your ~/.vimrc file.You will also get information similar to this, without enabling the ruler option, if you press Ctrl+g. The information will show at the bottom of the screen and will disappear again as soon as you do something.Pressing g followed by Ctrl+g will give you even more information about where in the document you are.