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I am an old IBM mainframer and am looking for an editor that will allow me to cut and paste columns. Mainframes deal in records and not characters so with the right editor you can highlite (and thus copy) the red column, and paste the whole column (in this case) to the right seveal positions.

123 456 789 789
123 456 789 789
123 456 789 789
123 456 789 789

Each line is a defined length rather than defined by where the LF/CR is located. This allows for the cut and paste to act like it does in a graphics application where you can cut/copy a rectangle of data.

Can text pad do this?

Yes, TextPad can be configured to use columns for copy/cut/paste/sort

TextPad has two text selection modes: normal and block (column). You can switch the mode with
Configure | Block Select Mode
I use this so often that I've given it a convenient shortcut (<Alt+Ins>).

Alternatively, if you use the mouse to select text, you can press <Alt> while dragging the mouse. (This switches the text selection mode for the current selection only.)

Note that in block select mode, you can move the cursor beyond the right-hand edge of the text. This is a great improvement over the equivalent mode in some other editors.

Beware that word wrap must be off to use block select mode.

You have made a dinosaur happy

VERY VERY HAPPY!!!! My check is going in today!!!

This software was on an old IBM Thinkpad they were throwing away at work. They got all new computers and they litterly piled the old ones in the hall (honest). They were all gone by the end of the day. A couple of bucks on eBay and it is as good as new. So I really did stumble across TextPad and am I glad I did. Thanks again!