Question

You can see that I add 40 spaces after my string but it starts at index 0.
Can I do the same thing with tab “\t” instead of spaces ” “?

NSString *firstString = [[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",stringToWrite] stringByPaddingToLength:40 withString:@" " startingAtIndex:0];

Answer 1

Yes @"\t" will put tab instead of spaces.
Also, your line could be a bit more simple :

NSString *firstString = [stringToWrite stringByPaddingToLength:40
                                                    withString:@" "
                                               startingAtIndex:0];