An error in my last example:
$b = sprintf("%30.s", $a);
will only add enough spaces before $a to pad the spaces + strlen($a) to 30 places.
My method of centering fixed text in a 72 character width space is:
$a = "Some string here";
$lwidth = 36; // 72/2
$b = sprintf("%".($lwidth + round(strlen($a)/2)).".s", $a);