I am trying to write a script that will take an input text file in the format

person: place: phonenumber;
person: place: phonenumber;
person: place: phonenumber;
...

and output it using sed too:

Name ######## Location ######### Phone Number
-------------------------------------------------------
person ####### place ########## (xxx) xxx-xxxx

without the pound signs.

I'm having a hard time understanding how SED reads the colon, and how to create headers to place the info under.

Any help is much appreciated.

I am not quite sure what exactly you want. Check if this helps

 cat abc.txt
person: place: phonenumber;
xyz: place1: 1111111111;

echo "Name ######## Location ######### Phone Number";  sed -e s/:/########/g abc.txt

Name ######## Location ######### Phone Number
person######## place######## phonenumber;
xyz######## place1######## 1111111111;