JSTL: I want to generate white spaces - html

Question

I have a jsp that uses JSTL to manage the value of the beans and I need to align two elements without touching the rest of the page (that was not written by me)
I have two rows like this:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA element one
element two
IF "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" (a variable) has a value I want to align "element two" with "element one" (that has AAA before, so is more at right than the second one)
So I want to obtain this (only if AAAA.. has a value):
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA element one
element two
the part is:
<c:out value='${variableA}'/> <c:out value='${elementOne}'/>
<c:if test="${variableA != ''}">
--I need to insert spaces here--
</c:if>
<c:out value='${elementTwo}'/>
I tried inserting many &nbsp, but they get inserted even when the "if" is false. I tried with div and p but without success and I tried valorizing a JSTL variable with many "&nbsp" but obviously they get trimmed when converted into html.
Can someone help me putting some spaces over there? :(
Thank you very much :)

Answer 1

use ${" "} to have real space, not

Answer 2

You need to change the <c:if> empty condition like below
<c:out value='${variableA}'/> <c:out value='${elementOne}'/> <br>
<c:if test="${not empty variableA}">
</c:if>
<c:out value='${elementTwo}'/>
To keep alignment better to use table tag instead of adding spaces
<table>
<tr>
<td> <c:out value='${variableA}'/> </td>
<td> <c:out value='${elementOne}'/> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> <c:out value='${variableB}'/> </td>
<td> <c:out value='${elementTwo}'/> </td>
</tr>
</table>

Answer 3

<style>
.left-div{
float: left;
width: 200px;
display: block;
}
.main-div{
width: 400px;
}
</style>
<div class="main-div">
<div class="left-div">AAAAAAAAAAA</div><div class="left-div">EL 1</div>
<div class="left-div"> </div><div class="left-div">EL 2</div>
</div>