Line up text in a JTextArea

Question

I'm trying to format line up text in columns in a JTextArea. Here is an example of what I'm trying to do.
SubTotal $5.00
Tax $8.00
Total $13.00
I've tried formating the text so that the first work will be a certain length but it still will not line up correctly in the text area because different letters take up different amounts of space. Thanks

Answer 1

change the font of the textarea to monospaced, then append the data
something like in this println
class Testing
  public Testing()
    String pad = "                   ";
    String[][] lines = {{"SubTotal", "$5.00"},{"Tax", "$8.00"},{"Total", "$13.00"}};
    for(int x = 0; x < lines.length; x++)
      System.out.println(lines[x][0]+(pad+lines[x][1]).substring(lines[x][0].length()+lines[x][1].length()));
  public static void main(String[] args){new Testing();}
}