numbers = [23.23, 0.1233, 1.0, 4.223, 9887.2]                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                                                                
for x in numbers:                                                                                                                                                                               
    print("{:10.4f}".format(x)) 

prints

   23.2300
    0.1233
    1.0000
    4.2230
 9887.2000

The format specifier inside the curly braces follows the Python format string syntax. Specifically, in this case, it consists of the following parts:

• The empty string before the colon means "take the next provided argument to format()" – in this case the x as the only argument.
• The 10.4f part after the colon is the format specification.
• The f denotes fixed-point notation.
• The 10 is the total width of the field being printed, lefted-padded by spaces.
• The 4 is the number of digits after the decimal point.

Prefix the width with a 0:

>>> '{0:03}'.format(1)
'001'

Also, you don't need the place-marker in recent versions of Python (not sure which, but at least 2.7 and 3.1):

>>> '{:03}'.format(1)
'001'

Combining two str.format / format calls:

numbers = [ 0.7653, 10.2, 100.2325, 500.9874 ]
>>> for n in numbers:
...     print('{:.6s}'.format('{:0.4f}'.format(n)))
...     #  OR format(format(n, '0.4f'), '.6s')
...
0.7653
10.200
100.23
500.98

or % operators:

>>> for n in numbers:
...     print('%.6s' % ('%.4f' % n))
...
0.7653
10.200
100.23
500.98

Alternatively, you can use slicing:

>>> for n in numbers:
...     print(('%.4f' % n)[:6])
...
0.7653
10.200
100.23
500.98

Use f-strings or the format() function or the str.format() method to format integers with zero-padding:

print(f"F-string: {integervalue:05d}")
print(format(integervalue, '05d'))
print('Formatted String : {0:05d}'.format(integervalue))

See the Format Specification Mini-Language; the leading 0 in the format signifies 0-padding, the 5 is the minimal field width; any number shorter than that is padded to the full width.

Demo:

>>> integervalue = 112
>>> f"F-string: {integervalue:05d}"
'F-string: 00112'
>>> format(integervalue, '05d')
'00112'
>>> 'Formatted String : {0:05d}'.format(integervalue)
'Formatted String : 00112'

I simply took the answer by @Harvey251 but split into test part and the part we need in production.

Usage would be:

# save the code at the end as formatfloat.py and then
import formatfloat

# do this first
width = 8
ff8 = formatfloat.FormatFloat(width)

# now use ff8 whenever you need
print(ff8(12345678901234))

And here is the solution. Save the code as formatfloat.py and import it to use FlotFormat class. As I said below, loop part of calculation better be moved to init part of the FormatFlot class.

import unittest

class FormatFloat:
    def __init__(self, width = 8):
        self.width = width
        self.maxnum = int('9'*(width - 1))  # 9999999
        self.minnum = -int('9'*(width - 2)) # -999999

    def __call__(self, x):

        # for small numbers
        # if -999,999 < given < 9,999,999:
        if x > self.minnum and x < self.maxnum:

            # o = f'{x:7}'
            o = f'{x:{self.width - 1}}'

            # converting int to float without adding zero
            if '.' not in o:
                o += '.'

            # float longer than 8 will need rounding to fit width
            elif len(o) > self.width:
                # output = str(round(x, 7 - str(x).index(".")))
                o = str(round(x, self.width-1 - str(x).index('.')))

        else:

            # for exponents
            # added a loop for super large numbers or negative as "-" is another char
            # Added max(max_char, 5) to account for max length of less 
            #     than 5, was having too much fun
            # TODO can i come up with a threshold value for these up front, 
            #     so that i dont have to do this calc for every value??
            for n in range(max(self.width, 5) - 5, 0, -1):
                fill = f'.{n}e'
                o = f'{x:{fill}}'.replace('+0', '+')

                # if all good stop looping
                if len(o) == self.width:
                    break
            else:
                raise ValueError(f"Number is too large to fit in {self.width} characters", x)
        return o


class TestFormatFloat(unittest.TestCase):
    def test_all(self):
        test = ( 
            ("1234567.", 1234567), 
            ("-123456.", -123456), 
            ("1.23e+13", 12345678901234), 
            ("123.4567", 123.4567), 
            ("123.4568", 123.45678), 
            ("1.234568", 1.2345678), 
            ("0.123457", 0.12345678), 
            ("   1234.", 1234), 
            ("1.235e+7", 12345678), 
            ("-1.23e+6", -1234567),
            )

        width = 8
        ff8 = FormatFloat(width)

        for expected, given in test:
            output = ff8(given)
            self.assertEqual(len(output), width, msg=output)
            self.assertEqual(output, expected, msg=given)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    unittest.main()