I use HTML to put text into a JButton. In this way I can play with colors and text size. What I do not like is the distance from the left border of the button and the text (this separation is too large). Is there a way to decrease this distance? I think it should be some parameter in the style of the HTML code.
Sample of the code:
JButton btn = new JButton("<html><span style='color:#000000; font-size: 11pt;'>" + label + "</span></html>");
I would recommend doing this programmatically rather than attempting to do it with HTML as you'll be more likely to see consistent results across platforms.
JButton btn = ...
btn.setHorizontalTextPosition(SwingConstants.LEFT);
Then you can customise the font size by either overriding paintComponent (more work) or modifying the FontUIResource object at start-up (although this will affect the font size of all buttons); e.g.
FontUIResource f = new FontUIResource("Tahoma", Font.PLAIN, 11);
Enumeration<Object> it = UIManager.getDefaults().keys();
while (it.hasMoreElements()) {
Object key = it.nextElement();
if (UIManager.get(key) instanceof FontUIResource) {
UIManager.put(key, f);
}
}