Together with François-Henri Schneider [vi] he founded the Đông Dương tạp chí (1912) – known as the first successful Vietnamese Quốc ngữ newspaper in Hà Nội.

In 1906, Nguyễn was transferred to the office of Hà Nội, where he and his companions established Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục with Lương Văn Can at the headmaster position.

[citation needed] Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh was a 'non-communist' nationalist moderniser who sought to renew the Vietnamese culture by adopting Western ways of life.

[5] He rejected the political violence of the Restoration League, arguing in 1913 that the Vietnamese should 'use the cultural benefits of France to shut out seditious noises, so that the explosions caused by the rebels will not drown out the drums of civilization'.

[7] Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh was also credited with devising the original set of rules for the Telex Vietnamese character encoding system.