> Set mark and point to beginning and end of the buffer.
> Execute C-u M-x align. This gives me
>
> Fred				(123)		456-7890
> 				Alice		(123)	456-7890
> 				Mary-Anne	(123)   456-7890
> 				Joe		(123)	456-7890

This is actually quite simple: align.el thinks that any whitespace
character is a column separator -- including newline.  Then Fred's space
and all the newlines end up getting expanded to match one of the original
newlines.

This is addressed by the attached trivial patch to align.el to make only
space and tab separate columns in its align-a-whitespace-separated-table
mode.  ChangeLog entry also attached; please install if there's no trouble
with it.

Davis Herring

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