Center text in TikZ according to the text baseline, not the object itself

Question

As a follow up to Adding TikZ code to TOC, I have a TikZ code added to each index entry. That code may contain these specific letters: A, N, C, P and Q. See the following example:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[titles]{tocloft}
\usepackage{tikz}

\newcommand*\info[1]{%
  \begin{tikzpicture}
    \node[draw,inner sep=1pt, minimum height=0.32cm, minimum width=0.9cm] {\tt\scriptsize #1};
  \end{tikzpicture}}

\newcommand{\listfoo}{List of foo}
\newlistof[section]{foo}{idf}{\listfoo}

\begin{document}

\refstepcounter{foo}
\addcontentsline{idf}{foo}{\protect \info{ANCP}\ Hello world.}

\refstepcounter{foo}
\addcontentsline{idf}{foo}{\protect \info{ANCPQ}\ Hello bar.}

\listoffoo

\end{document}

As you can see, (pardon my possible misuse of the terms) both text objects are centralized, but the latter - because of the letter Q - does not look that aesthetic to me.

Since I know all the possible letters I may use, and as the only problematic letter is the Q, I wrote this fix using the xstring package and Martin Scharrer's suggestion:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[titles]{tocloft}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{xstring}

\newcommand*\info[1]{%
  \begin{tikzpicture}
    \IfSubStr{#1}{Q}{%
    \node[draw,inner sep=1pt, minimum height=0.32cm, minimum width=0.9cm] {\raisebox{\dimexpr-.5\height+.5\depth-.8ex\relax}{\tt\scriptsize #1}};}{%
    \node[draw,inner sep=1pt, minimum height=0.32cm, minimum width=0.9cm] {\tt\scriptsize #1};}
  \end{tikzpicture}}

\newcommand{\listfoo}{List of foo}
\newlistof[section]{foo}{idf}{\listfoo}

\begin{document}

\refstepcounter{foo}
\addcontentsline{idf}{foo}{\protect \info{ANCP}\ Hello world.}

\refstepcounter{foo}
\addcontentsline{idf}{foo}{\protect \info{ANCPQ}\ Hello bar.}

\listoffoo

\end{document}

That pretty much solves my issue.

I'd like to know if there are better ideas of how to solve this particular alignment issue, dynamically or not.

Answer 1

Using \raisebox is actually the right direction. However, in this case I would use its second optional argument to set the depth of the text to zero: \raisebox{0pt}[\height][0pt]{...}. This ignores everything below the baseline, while the text is actually not raised and the height stays like it is.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[titles]{tocloft}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{xstring}

\newcommand*\info[1]{%
  \begin{tikzpicture}
      \node[draw,inner sep=1pt, minimum height=0.32cm, minimum width=0.9cm] {\tt\scriptsize\raisebox{0pt}[\height][0pt]{#1}};
  \end{tikzpicture}}

\newcommand{\listfoo}{List of foo}
\newlistof[section]{foo}{idf}{\listfoo}

\begin{document}

\refstepcounter{foo}
\addcontentsline{idf}{foo}{\protect \info{ANCP}\ Hello world.}

\refstepcounter{foo}
\addcontentsline{idf}{foo}{\protect \info{ANCPQ}\ Hello bar.}

\refstepcounter{foo}
\addcontentsline{idf}{foo}{\protect \info{ANCPQgyj}\ Hello bar.}

\listoffoo

\end{document}

You could also use the baseline={(<the node name>.base)} option to place the picture baseline to the text baseline. Then the framed text and not its frame is based at the same line as the other text. Finally, you can also move the baseline a little to adjust how the frame lies relative to the normal text: baseline={([yshift=<length>]<the node name>.base)}

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[titles]{tocloft}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{xstring}

\newcommand*\info[1]{%
  \begin{tikzpicture}[baseline={(TEXT.base)}]
      \node[draw,inner sep=1pt, minimum height=0.32cm, minimum width=0.9cm] (TEXT) {\tt\scriptsize\raisebox{0pt}[\height][0pt]{#1}};
  \end{tikzpicture}}

\newcommand{\listfoo}{List of foo}
\newlistof[section]{foo}{idf}{\listfoo}

\begin{document}

\refstepcounter{foo}
\addcontentsline{idf}{foo}{\protect \info{ANCP}\ Hello world.}

\refstepcounter{foo}
\addcontentsline{idf}{foo}{\protect \info{ANCPQ}\ Hello bar.}

\listoffoo

\end{document}

Answer 2

Another option would be to explicitly set text height and text depth:

\node[draw,inner sep=1pt, minimum height=0.32cm, minimum width=0.9cm,text height=0.6em,text depth=0.1em] {\ttfamily\scriptsize #1};

Answer 3

Say

{\smash[b]{\tt\scriptsize #1}}

instead of only {\tt\scriptsize #1} in the original definition. Requires amsmath.