Use str.ljust():
>>> 'Hi'.ljust(6) 'Hi ' You should also consider string.zfill(), str.ljust()str.rjust() and str.center() for string formatting. These can be chained and have the 'fill' character specified, thus:
>>> ('3'.zfill(8) + 'blind'.rjust(8) + 'mice'.ljust(8, '.')).center(40) ' 00000003 blindmice.... ' These string formatting operations have the advantage of working in Python v2 and v3.
Take a look at pydoc str sometime: there's a wealth of good stuff in there.