To change this behavior you need to change the following lines in the file ../plugin/matchparen.vim: line: 102 let [m_lnum, m_col] = searchpairpos(c, '', c2, s_flags, s_skip, stopline) to: let [m_lnum, m_col] = searchpairpos(c, '', c2, s_flags, s_skip) line: 109 if m_lnum > 0 && m_lnum >= line('w0') && m_lnum <= line('w$') to: if m_lnum > 0