How can I left align the text in an Angular Material stretched md-button?

Question

Without tinkering too much with my own CSS, Is there an attribute or configuration I can use to left align the text in a md-button that is stretched a bit to fit a menu for example?

This is my current view

<md-sidenav md-is-locked-open="$mdMedia('gt-md')" layout="column">
  <md-toolbar>
    <h1 class="md-toolbar-tools">
      <a ng-href="/" layout="row" href="/">
        <div class="docs-logotype">Material Design</div>
      </a>
    </h1>
  </md-toolbar>
  <md-content flex role="navigation" layout="column">
    <md-button>Button1</md-button>
    <md-button>Button2</md-button>
  </md-content>
</md-sidenav>

<md-content flex layout="column">
  <md-toolbar>
    <div class="md-toolbar-tools">
      <button class="md-icon-button md-button" aria-label="Settings">
        <md-icon md-svg-icon="images/icons/menu.svg" aria-hidden="true"></md-icon>
        <div class="md-ripple-container"></div>
      </button>
      <md-button>Button1</md-button> <!-- how to left align this text inside a stretched button -->
      <md-button>Button2</md-button>
      <span flex=""></span>
      <md-button>Right side button</md-button>
      <button class="md-icon-button md-button" aria-label="More">
        <md-icon md-svg-icon="images/icons/more_vert.svg" aria-hidden="true"></md-icon>
        <div class="md-ripple-container"></div>
      </button>
    </div>
  </md-toolbar>
  <md-content flex>
    Some content !!
  </md-content>
</md-content>

Answer 1

Use empty <span> tag with a flex attribute, as shown below. You can even specify a value to the flex attribute to get a more specific location.

<div layout="row" layout-align="start center" flex>
    <md-button>button 1 </md-button>
    <span flex></span>
</div>

If you just want to align text inside a button, try setting the style attribute like this:

<md-button style="text-align:left">button </md-button>

Answer 2

You can do this if using within md-toolbar(Angular 4) Angular 6+:

Html

<mat-toolbar id="toolbar" color="primary" >
  <mat-button>button 1 </mat-button>
  <span class="spacing"></span>
  <mat-button>button 2 </mat-button>
</mat-toolbar>

OR

<mat-toolbar id="toolbar" color="primary">
  <mat-button>button 1 </mat-button>
  <span style="flex: 1 1 auto;"></span>
  <mat-button>button 2 </mat-button>
</mat-toolbar>

Your CSS if no styling in HTML:

.spacing {
    flex: 1 1 auto;
}

Hope this helps someone.