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Asked: 2026-05-11T05:17:36+00:00

I am looking for a way to downlight columns in Notepad++. the COBOL compiler

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I am looking for a way to ‘downlight’ columns in Notepad++.

  • the COBOL compiler ignores the first 6 columns and all characters starting from column 73 (to column 80, 81+ is ignored anyway).
  • The seventh character has a special meaning (comment,debug, … ).
  • The 8th to 11th characters have also a special meaning.

for code-viewing it is sufficient to do a reg-ex search for ^....... because ^.{7} is not working. With the option ‘Mark Pattern’ hit ‘Search all’ and you got the first 7 columns marked.

The problem is, when you edit the code, the marking is expanded / shrinked / moved and you need to redo the mark/search.

I use NotePad++ 5.03 ansi w/o unicode, COBOL highlighting installed from its website.

edit: I also tried ‘options’-‘View’-pane-‘Primary View’-‘show vertical limit’ but this is shown in all documents and only for one column-position

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1 Answer

  1. jEdit has a COBOL mode but it also doesn’t treat the first seven characters in a special way, except when they are followed by * or /. Then the whole line is treated as a comment.

    It should be possible to change the edit mode to change this, I’m a bit worried about the performance, though.

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