diff --git a/src/TerminalDisplay.h b/src/TerminalDisplay.h
--- a/src/TerminalDisplay.h
+++ b/src/TerminalDisplay.h
@@ -915,6 +915,8 @@
     // Boilerplate setup for MessageWidget
     KMessageWidget* createMessageWidget(const QString &text);
 
+    int loc(int x, int y) const;
+
     // the window onto the terminal screen which this display
     // is currently showing.
     QPointer<ScreenWindow> _screenWindow;
diff --git a/src/TerminalDisplay.cpp b/src/TerminalDisplay.cpp
--- a/src/TerminalDisplay.cpp
+++ b/src/TerminalDisplay.cpp
@@ -74,18 +74,23 @@
 
 using namespace Konsole;
 
-#ifndef loc
-#define loc(X,Y) ((Y)*_columns+(X))
-#endif
-
 #define REPCHAR   "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ" \
     "abcdefgjijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" \
     "0123456789./+@"
 
 // we use this to force QPainter to display text in LTR mode
 // more information can be found in: http://unicode.org/reports/tr9/
 const QChar LTR_OVERRIDE_CHAR(0x202D);
 
+inline int TerminalDisplay::loc(int x, int y) const {
+    Q_ASSERT(y >= 0 && y < _lines);
+    Q_ASSERT(x >= 0 && x < _columns);
+    x = qBound(0, x, _columns - 1);
+    y = qBound(0, y, _lines - 1);
+
+    return y * _columns + x;
+}
+
 /* ------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
 /*                                                                           */
 /*                                Colors                                     */