If you want to avoid formats, the handiest way to get fixed width columns is with pack. Given $width and $cols,

while (@data) {
    print pack( "A${width}" x $cols, splice @data, 0, $cols), $/;
}
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While that may not be the print format you want, it illustrates how to control this loop in an index-free way.

After Compline,
Zaxo