tikz nodes same height (e.g. in Matrix) + vertical alignment

Question

I know I can manually vertical align text in nodes via the text height/text depth keys. I know also I can set the total height to be the same with the same two keys.

But what if I want both effects at the same time? See my examples:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
    \begin{tikzpicture}
        \matrix[every node/.style={draw,rectangle,text width=4em}]{
            \node {arr}; & \node {KMUX}; & \node {rather long text}; \\
        };
    \end{tikzpicture}

    \begin{tikzpicture}
        \matrix[every node/.style={draw,rectangle,text width=4em, text height=1.5ex, text depth=6ex, text centered}]{
            \node {arr}; & \node {KMUX}; & \node {rather long text}; \\
        };
    \end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

this produces:

So I think it's obvious that the problem with the first one is that the boxes doesn't have the same height. Now when trying to fix that, I set the height/depth manually. But now the three nodes aren't vertically centered in their boxes (text centered apparently only configures horizontal centering).

Any ideas on this? (I know there are many questions out there on similar issues, but I can't find one tackling this issue)

Answer 1

With matrix library, lines automatically adopted to height cell:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{matrix}

\begin{document}
    \begin{tikzpicture}
\matrix [matrix of nodes,
         nodes={inner sep=2mm, anchor=center,
                text width=4em, align=center},
         draw, inner sep=0pt] (m)
{
arr &   KMUX    &   rather long text in four lines   \\
};
\draw   (m-1-1.east |- m.north) -- (m-1-1.east |- m.south)
        (m-1-2.east |- m.north) -- (m-1-2.east |- m.south);
    \end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Addendum: It is not clear what you after.

You can set nodes height with prescribed height (as is suggested in @hpekristiansen answer) which is rigid and require that needed maximum height is know in advance. This can be automated (on very complex way) by measuring height of all nodes and on the end use the largest among them.

One way may be not to draw nodes but write simple table, for example by use of tabularray package:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tabularray}

\begin{document}
    \begin{table}[!ht]
\begin{tblr}{hlines, vlines,
             colspec = {*{3}{Q[c, m, wd=4em]}}
             }
arr &   KMUX    &   rather long text in four lines   \\
\end{tblr}
    \end{table}
\end{document}

which gives:

However, if you for some reason still like to have this this table as tikz node, you can insert it in node as shown below:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
    \begin{tikzpicture}[
N/.style = {draw, inner sep=0pt}
                      ]
\node [N]   {\begin{tblr}{vlines,
             colspec = {*{3}{Q[c, m, wd=4em]}},}
            arr &   KMUX    &   rather long text in four lines \\
            \end{tblr}
            };
    \end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Result of compilation is the same as before.

Answer 2

This could be an alternative to similar constructions with tcolorbox

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage[most]{tcolorbox}

\begin{document}

\begin{tcbitemize}[raster columns=3, raster equal height, raster width center=9cm, raster column skip=-.5mm, colback=white, sharp corners, halign=center, valign=center]
\tcbitem arr 
\tcbitem KMUX    
\tcbitem long text in four lines 
\end{tcbitemize}

\begin{tcbitemize}[raster columns=4, raster equal height, raster width center=9cm, raster column skip=-.5mm, colback=white, sharp corners, halign=center, valign=center]
\tcbitem arr 
\tcbitem KMUX    
\tcbitem long text in four lines 
\tcbitem like previous but with another column
\end{tcbitemize}
\end{document}

Answer 3

\documentclass[tikz, border=1cm]{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\matrix[every node/.style={draw, rectangle, text width=4em, minimum height=10ex, text centered}]{
\node {arr}; & \node {KMUX}; & \node {rather long text}; \\
};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}