Shell Programming and Scripting

Is there a way to fix the width of the word being printed to a file? I am trying to create an output to a file with columns , like a spread sheet. I have used "\t" to adjust the columns but still it does not show well in the file, mainly due to the variable length values in the column so \t does not help much. Hence I am thinking if there is a way to set a fixed width for a word in a line using \t i can format the file well and it will show the columns well. An example of current display is below followed by expected output.

Code:

 awk '{print $1"\t\t\t"$12"\t\t"$14}' >> $logfile

Current output:

Code:

Column 1           Column2           Column3
Dddddddddddata       val                     val
data         val              val

So if I can assign a fixed width to the column 1 it would help me structure it. Shell script is the only option for me now, hence would greatly appreciate any input on this.

Thanks

Code:

$ echo 'abc def' | nawk '{printf("[%-12s][%-15s]\n", $1, $2)}'
[abc         ][def            ]