Text Padding Tool
Pad every line to a fixed width with any fill character — left, right, or center aligned.
Padding Configuration
Lines: 0Characters: 0
How text padding works
Text padding ensures every line is a fixed width, filling empty space with a chosen character. Left-padding (fill right) creates a ragged-right format; right-padding creates right-aligned columns like a table; center-padding centres each line. This is useful for ASCII art, generating fixed-width log output, aligning code comments, or building plain-text tables.
To split text before padding, use the String Splitter. For line-number prefixes, see Add Line Numbers.
Built and maintained by Meet Shah · Last updated
What this tool is used for
- Aligning a column of values for fixed-width output.
- Padding labels so an ASCII table's borders line up.
- Producing fixed-width records for a legacy importer.
- Centring a caption inside a fixed-width banner so the borders stay square.
- Aligning code comments across several lines.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is padding used for?
- Fixed-width formats: legacy mainframe records, COBOL layouts, some bank files, and aligning console output into columns. In these formats field position IS the schema, so padding is structural rather than cosmetic.
- When do I pad left versus right?
- Numbers pad LEFT with zeros or spaces so digits align by place value; text pads RIGHT with spaces so it reads naturally. Getting this backwards makes a numeric column unreadable and breaks fixed-width parsing.
- What happens if the content is longer than the width?
- A real decision: truncate and lose data, or overflow and break the alignment. Fixed-width formats usually require truncation, which is why field lengths must be validated before writing rather than after.
- Does padding work with non-ASCII text?
- Not by character count alone. CJK characters are double-width in a monospace terminal, so padding to 10 characters produces a column twice as wide. Alignment needs display width, not string length.
- Is this the same as padStart in JavaScript?
- The same operation — padStart and padEnd take a target length and a pad string. They count UTF-16 code units, so an emoji counts as 2 and a combining sequence counts every part, which misaligns visually.
- Why does padded text misalign in a terminal?
- Because padding counts characters and a terminal renders columns. CJK characters and many emoji occupy two columns, so a correctly padded string can still look ragged — alignment needs display width, not length.
- What is padding with a character other than a space for?
- Fixed-width record formats and cheque-style protection, where a zero-padded number keeps its field width and a dot leader guides the eye across a gap. The choice belongs to the format, not to the tool.
Common errors and gotchas
- Padding with spaces where the destination expects a specific fill character, such as zeros.
- Padding by character count when the display measures width, which differs for wide characters.
- Truncating rather than padding when a line already exceeds the target width.
- Padding text that a downstream system trims, which undoes the alignment.
- Aligning in a proportional font, where equal character counts are not equal widths.
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