Pad strings left or right so columnar output lines up. printf gets you about 95% of what you need; the helpers wrap it for readability.
Bash
padr() { printf '%-*s' "$2" "$1"; } # right-pad (left-align)
padl() { printf '%*s' "$2" "$1"; } # left-pad (right-align)
# Examples:
padr "alice" 12 # "alice "
padl "alice" 12 # " alice"
# Real-world: aligned table
printf '%-12s %5s\n' "USER" "JOBS"
for user in alice bob charlie dave; do
printf '%-12s %5d\n' "$user" $RANDOM
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