Insert space until column

Question

I have to enter in the following format...

A          B          C
D          E          F
[]

I use indent-relative to jump from one column to another. But is there a way to jump to column number? And if so, is there a way to insert spaces until that column?

Answer 1

Maybe indent-to-column would work for you.

indent-to-column is an alias for `indent-to'.

(indent-to-column COLUMN &optional MINIMUM)

Indent from point with tabs and spaces until COLUMN is reached.
Optional second argument MINIMUM says always do at least MINIMUM spaces
even if that goes past COLUMN; by default, MINIMUM is zero.

The return value is COLUMN.

It enters tabs too, but you can clean those up when you're done with the untabify command.

Answer 2

You can use move-to-tab-stop with a custom tab-stop-list variable to denote your columns. You could use M-x edit-tab-stops RET to configure this variable in a visual manner.

You can also use M-x ruler-mode RET and M-x ruler-mode-toggle-show-tab-stops RET to view your tab stops.

For jumping multiple columns, move-to-tab-stop doesn't repeat with a prefix arg, but if you define a keyboard macro which calls it, you can then use the prefx arg to repeat it as many times as you require:

Record macro:
F3 M-x move-to-tab-stop RET F4

Either bind to key temporarily:
C-x C-k b (key)

Or name it and ask Emacs to provide you with the elisp to put in your init file:
C-x C-k n (name) RET
M-x insert-kbd-macro RET (name) RET
(global-set-key (kbd "key") 'name) (for the appropriate key and name)

You can enter a numeric prefix arg with any of:
C-u number(s)
M- number(s)
C- number(s)

e.g. if you had bound the macro to C-i then M-4 M-2 C-i would move forward forty two tab stops, and so would C-u 4 2 C-i

Set the indent-tabs-mode variable to nil to prevent tabs being inserted.