One thing that might help is using ":set virtualedit=all". This makes all lines act as if there are unlimited spaces at the end of line. That means you can move

One thing that might help is using ":set virtualedit=all". This makes all lines act as if there are unlimited spaces at the end of line. That means you can move anywhere on the screen by cursor or by clicking with your mouse, etc, and not have to worry about typing in all the padding yourself. Once you place a character at column N, it will insert spaces up to column N-1 then place the new character.