Set Mtext tab distance via lisp

Hi, i have a long Mtext list which has been created externally from my office, the first 25 characters is the material name followed by the quantity. I need to get the quantity part of each line to line up currently it requires a user to use the space bar to line up the quantity part of the line, this is time consuming and not the most fun thing to do when you have 100's of lines to fix.

Is there a way that i can set the tab distance via a lisp and loop down each line removing everywhere where there is more than a single space and replace it with a tab(chr 9)?

Currently it comes in as follows, the problem is that spaces and the letters are not the same width:

Bricks 10000

4x2 wooden planks 6000

white doors 6

thanks in advanced.

Dan

One no programming way. Open file in Word replace space with ^t then just copy paste into mtext

Ok another pick MTEXT select all, choose Columns.

Bring text into mtext pick it then FIND replace space with \U+0009 will insert tabs.

A good link about setting tabs http://www.augi.com/library/autocad-tricks-for-mtext-beyond-the-basics1