Turns out you can indeed use the mouse (I think this may be exactly what you were looking for):

 ;; based on: https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/19585/13444 (defun brds/describe-char-at-mouse-click (click-event) "`describe-char' at CLICK-EVENT's position. CLICK-EVENT should be a mouse-click event." (interactive "e") (run-hooks 'mouse-leave-buffer-hook) (let ((pos (cadr (event-start click-event)))) (describe-char pos))) ;; <d>escribe (global-set-key (kbd "C-c d <down-mouse-1>") #'brds/describe-char-at-mouse-click 

Turns out you can indeed use the mouse (I think this may be exactly what you were looking for):

 ;; based on: https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/19585/13444 (defun brds/describe-char-at-mouse-click (click-event) "`describe-char' at CLICK-EVENT's position. CLICK-EVENT should be a mouse-click event." (interactive "e") (run-hooks 'mouse-leave-buffer-hook) (let ((pos (cadr (event-start click-event)))) (describe-char pos))) ;; <d>escribe (global-set-key (kbd "C-c d <down-mouse-1>") #'brds/describe-char-at-mouse-click)