Hi Samuel:

In GridView you could try a Calculated Field like: MID(TRIM([Item number fieldname])&" ", 1, 26) where the spaces after the ampersand pad out the length to at least 26 characters (have to be at least 25 spaces, though it doesn't appear that way on in this post).

Most languages have a PAD() function but GridView doesn't so we have to make our own.