Jump to a specific line without moving the cursor horizontally

Question

Consider you are editing the left table in Vim. Your cursor (■) is at Line 14, Column 12.

Where you are now          Move the cursor

11 +-------+-----+         11 +-------+-----+
12 | Name  | Age |         12 | Name  | Age |
13 +=======+=====+         13 +=======+=====+
14 | Alice | 5■  |   -->   14 | Alice | 5   |
15 +-------+-----+         15 +-------+-----+
   ...                        ...
95 +-------+-----+         95 +-------+-----+
96 | Zoe   |     |         96 | Zoe   |  ■  |
97 +-------+-----+         97 +-------+-----+

What's the easy way to move your cursor at Line 96, Column 12, i.e., jump to this specific line without moving horizontally?

Answer 1

Turn off :h 'startofline' :

set nostartofline

And execute one of the following command:

96G
:96
:/Zoe

It will place cursor at target line without moving horizontally if target line is longer enough.

Commands starts with : are ex command, check this question if you are confused about / and :/ .

Answer 2

Assuming the 96th line actually has column no. 12 (or set virtualedit=all), you can do 96zz (or 96zt, or 96zb).

See :h scroll-cursor for more information.