I’m starting to think that the notion of a “column” number value is a ridiculous concept. :-)
Moving away from regular expressions, here’s a PythonScript for experimentation, that will prompt you for a column number to move the caret to on the current line.
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- from __future__ import print_function # references: # https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/25579/how-can-i-go-to-a-specific-column # for newbie info on PythonScripts, see https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/23039/faq-desk-how-to-install-and-run-a-script-in-pythonscript from Npp import * current_line = editor.lineFromPosition(editor.getCurrentPos()) max_column = editor.getColumn(editor.getLineEndPosition(current_line)) while True: if max_column == 0: notepad.messageBox('Current line is empty (has no columns)', '') break user_input = notepad.prompt('Enter column (1 - {mc}) to move caret to (on current line):'.format(mc=max_column+1), '', '') if user_input is None: break try: desired_column = int(user_input) - 1 if not (0 <= desired_column <= max_column): raise ValueError except ValueError: continue pos_of_desired_col = editor.findColumn(current_line, desired_column) gc = editor.getColumn(pos_of_desired_col) if desired_column > gc: notepad.messageBox('desired column ({dc}) is greater than existing column ({gc}) on current line; moving to column {gc}'.format( dc=desired_column+1, gc=gc+1), '') editor.setSel(pos_of_desired_col, pos_of_desired_col) breakNote that this does NOT implement any of the grand ideas I had EARLIER for a well-rounded-out “goto line/col” feature (maybe a script for that comes later if we can find a way beyond “weird” column results with some of the stranger unicode characters…).