One-dimensional (1D) catalytic etching was investigated in few-layer hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) films. Etching of hBN was shown to share a number of similarities with that of graphitic films. As in graphitic films, etch tracks in hBN commenced at film edges and occurred predominantly along certain crystal directions of its lattice, though it was shown that the tracks were generally narrower than those of few-layer graphene under similar processing conditions. It was also shown that catalytic hydrogenation can occur completely through a few-layer hBN film, demonstrating that this process can be used in the formation of isolated low-dimensional nanoscale structures from other layered 2D materials beyond graphene. This ability for thin hBN films to be etched completely through allowed for a crystalline substrate to guide the etching process, which was demonstrated with the successful etch track formation of few-layer hBN on single-crystalline sapphire substrates. The substrate-guided etching resulted in parallel few-layer hBN nanoribbons having an average width of 32 nm and spacing of 13 nm.