diff --git a/doc/ChangeLog b/doc/ChangeLog
index 02be9a4..730a5fe 100644
--- a/doc/ChangeLog
+++ b/doc/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+2008-08-25 Jörgen Stenarson  <jorgen.stenarson -at- bostream.nu>
+	* Merging tab insert patch from Vivian De Smedt. Removed comments
+	  with vds initials.
+
 2008-02-21 Jörgen Stenarson  <jorgen.stenarson -at- bostream.nu>
 	* unicodehelper functions now defaults to ascii if supplied pyreadline_encoding is 
 	  not a valid encoding. This is a brute force solution to ticket #228 it fixes 
diff --git a/pyreadline/modes/basemode.py b/pyreadline/modes/basemode.py
index 1d4ff64..8437cbe 100644
--- a/pyreadline/modes/basemode.py
+++ b/pyreadline/modes/basemode.py
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ class BaseMode(object):
         self.key_dispatch = {}
         self.argument=1
         self.prevargument=None
+        self.tabstop = 4
         
     def __repr__(self):
         return "<BaseMode>"
diff --git a/pyreadline/modes/emacs.py b/pyreadline/modes/emacs.py
index b29a7b8..9fb80d0 100644
--- a/pyreadline/modes/emacs.py
+++ b/pyreadline/modes/emacs.py
@@ -283,7 +283,8 @@ class EmacsMode(basemode.BaseMode):
 
     def tab_insert(self, e): # (M-TAB)
         '''Insert a tab character. '''
-        ws = ' ' * (self.tabstop - (self.line_cursor%self.tabstop))
+        cursor = min(self.l_buffer.point, len(self.l_buffer.line_buffer))
+        ws = ' ' * (self.tabstop - (cursor % self.tabstop))
         self.insert_text(ws)
 
     def transpose_chars(self, e): # (C-t)
diff --git a/pyreadline/modes/notemacs.py b/pyreadline/modes/notemacs.py
index 539e3a0..67b2efa 100644
--- a/pyreadline/modes/notemacs.py
+++ b/pyreadline/modes/notemacs.py
@@ -272,7 +272,8 @@ class NotEmacsMode(basemode.BaseMode):
 
     def tab_insert(self, e): # (M-TAB)
         '''Insert a tab character. '''
-        ws = ' ' * (self.tabstop - (self.line_cursor%self.tabstop))
+        cursor = min(self.l_buffer.point, len(self.l_buffer.line_buffer))
+        ws = ' ' * (self.tabstop - (cursor % self.tabstop))
         self.insert_text(ws)
 
     def self_insert(self, e): # (a, b, A, 1, !, ...)