Text::Tabs will do the same as my example, it will replace the tabs with a fixed amount of spaces but it will not consider the spaces in between the two strings.

i disagree. from the description in the Text::Tabs pod:

Text::Tabs does about what the unix utilities expand(1) and unexpand(1) do. Given a line with tabs in it, expand will replace the tabs with the appropriate number of spaces. Given a line with or without tabs in it, unexpand will add tabs when it can save bytes by doing so. Invisible compression with plain ascii!

here's an example:

#!/usr/bin/perl
require 5.006_001;
use strict;
use warnings;
$|++;

use Text::Tabs;
my $tabstop = 8;

my $text = "12345678901234567890\n\thi\tbye";
print $text,$/,length $text,$/;
my $newtext = expand($text)
print $newtext, $/,length $newtext,$/;
__END__
## prints
12345678901234567890
        hi      bye
28
12345678901234567890
        hi      bye
40
[download]

...unless i'm missing something

~Particle *accelerates*

You are right, it should work. However with me it is not working and I guess this is a bug or something else in the listbox module of Tk. Below you can find an example using your example were it comes out bad in the listbox.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use warnings;
use Tk;
$|++;

my $W;
my $c;
my $lab;
my @newtext;

use Text::Tabs;
my $tabstop = 8;

my $text = "Shape:r59\tX-loc:9.77\tY-loc:5.608";
my $text1 = "Shape:r59\tX-loc:9.8819\tY-loc:0";
push @newtext,($text,$text1);


my @newtext = expand(@newtext);

$c = initCanvas4();

sub initCanvas4
{
$W = MainWindow->new;
$W->title("Fiducial Information");
$W->iconname('Fiducial Information');
my $canv = $W->Canvas(qw/-relief sunken -relief flat -bd 0 -width 512 
+-height 350 -background SlateGray3/);
$canv->pack; 
return $canv;
}


# Create a listbox with the contents of the directory.                
+ 
my $ent = $c->Scrolled(qw/Listbox -setgrid 1 -height 3 -width 40 -scro
+llbars e -selectmode single/);
    for(@{newtext})
    {
    $ent->insert(0, "$_");
    }
 #$ent->bind('<Double-Button-1>',
 #    sub {
 #       $file_selected = $ent->get('active');
#
 #   }

$c->createWindow('10p 80p',
        -window => $lab,
        -anchor => 'nw'
        );
  
$c->createWindow('10p 95p',
        -window => $ent,
        -anchor => 'nw'
        );

MainLoop;
[download]

The reason your text doesn't line up is probably because you have a proportional font being used in your list box.

To display tab-columnated data you will need to instruct the listbox to use a non-proportional font.

---

Cor! Like yer ring! ... HALO dammit! ... 'Ave it yer way! Hal-lo, Mister la-de-da. ... Like yer ring!

Actually, there is a second problem with your sample code, Text::Tabs uses a global var $tabstop for control (Yuck!) but you are using a my var. You will need to change that.

---

Cor! Like yer ring! ... HALO dammit! ... 'Ave it yer way! Hal-lo, Mister la-de-da. ... Like yer ring!