The result is a Number, which is the current screen column of the cursor. The leftmost column has number 1. This function is mainly used for testing. Note: Always returns the current screen column, thus if used in a command (e.g. ":echo screencol()") it will return the column inside the command line, which is 1 when the command is executed. To get the cursor position in the file use one of the following mappings: nnoremap GG ":echom ".screencol()."\n" nnoremap GG :echom screencol()<CR nnoremap GG echom screencol()<CR