<p></p>
<p>In the file with <code>Tab a</code> go to the next line and type 5 <code>a</code>s , the last <code>a</code> lines up with the <code>a</code> in the line above, so clearly the <code>a</code> in the line above is in column 5.</p>
<p>You appear to have confused character count and column count, a column is a vertical strip of screen, a character is an entity in teh file, the file may only have two characters <code>Tab</code> and <code>a</code> but <code>Tab</code> occupies 4 columns and <code>a</code> one, total 5.</p>

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