Regex to find data in specific column of a line

Question

I'm trying to search a document for data on a specific column. I am trying to use:

^.{x}[data to find]

where x is the number of columns I want - 1.

I'm not sure if I am doing something wrong, or if my regex engine does not support that syntax. I am trying to use Notepad++, if that is helpful.

Answer 1

Awk is much more suited to this kind of task if you have access to it.

It doesn't look like notepad++ has a {x} feature from the documentation I can find.