Question: How to set the column width in the align environment.
I've got a align environment to demonstrate how to do division by hand so the columns always contain only one number, but the columns are much wider than this.

Following an example only showing the ugly result because of to wide columns:

```
\begin{align}
    &1&2&3&4&4\\
    & & & &2&4\\
\end{align}

```

Answer: 
```
\documentclass[leqno]{report}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}

\begin{flalign}
1 + 1 &= 2     &\\
    1 &= 2 - 1 
\end{flalign}

\end{document}

```

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VFXGB.png)
You could use `\hphantom` for taking the required space for alignment:

```
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\begin{document}
\begin{enumerate}
\item $1 + 1 = 2$ 
\item $\hphantom{1+1}\mathllap{1} = 2 - 1$
\end{enumerate}
\end{document}

```