Provide spacing between categories in highcharts while retaining labels -

we trying provide spacing between categories used highcharts reason x-axis seem zoomed in difficult navigate.

tried using maxpadding setting x-axis labels on x-axis getting changed.

these categories used :

categories: [     '11-20','11-23','11-24','11-25','11-27','11-30','12-01'] } 

upon using

xaxis: {     maxpadding: 1 }, 

the spacing looks fine categories used above replaced 0,0.5,1,... till 12.

is there way can preserve categories or x-axis labels while reducing spacing between them

could please clarify

thank you