How to align properly using sprintf?

I am trying to display information in subplot using sprintf to create messages. Sample code that I am using is below - even though left-justify and right-justify has constant values, the output doesn't look aligned.

    messages = {};

    messages{end+1} = sprintf(['\t%-20s',' : ','%10d'] , 'Feature 1', 152);
    messages{end+1} = sprintf(['\t%-20s',' : ','%10d'], 'other feature', 6509);
    messages{end+1} = sprintf(['\t%-20s',' : ','%10d'], 'N',3);

    text(-0.15, 0.7, messages, 'FontWeight', 'bold');
    axis off

Here is the screenshot of the output from running the above code:

I am hoping to have output that is better aligned, like below:

Feature 1      :     152
other feature  :    6509
N              :       3

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

[Rik]

Using a fixed-width font will help if you're trying to align text with numbers of characters.

[Louis]

Tried

text(-0.15, 0.7, messages, 'FontName', 'FixedWidth', 'FontWeight', 'bold');

but I get the same outcome.

*Fixed typo according to comment below

[the cyclist]

It will work if you spell FixedWidth correctly. :-)

[Louis]

Thanks for pointing that out. It works!