You can use the printf
command, like this:
printf "%-10s |\n" "$txt"
The %s
means to interpret the argument as string, and the -10
tells it to left justify to width 10 (negative numbers mean left justify while positive numbers justify to the right). The \n
is required to print a newline, since printf
doesn’t add one implicitly.
Note that man printf
briefly describes this command, but the full format documentation can be found in the C function man page in man 3 printf
.