Hans van der Meer wrote:

There is something I do not understand with alignment. My idea was to put a small text in the middle of the line. The minimal example below does center he first but not the second alignment. Is this intentionale or an unforseen interaction between alignment and framed?

It is a somewhat unexpected side-effect of \framed being a \hbox. Try this: \startalignment[middle] \leavevmode\framed{middle? no!} \stopalignment Cheers, taco