complex nodes with tikz-qtree

Question

I am trying to convert my tree-dvips trees into something that is compatible with xelatex. I had a look at the tikz-qtree package, but it seems to be impossible to set complex nodes.

In the old qtree package there was a low level syntax that I could use (leaf, branch, ...), but this seems to be gone. In tree-dvips I just put the complex stuff inside of \node{...}, but how do I do this with tikz-qtree?

\documentclass{scrbook}

\usepackage{tikz-qtree}

\begin{document}

This is some text and the figure should be the size of the text not larger and not smaller.
\begin{figure}[h]
\begin{tikzpicture}
\Tree[.{V[\begin{tabular}[t]{@{}l@{}}
             spr eliste,\\
             comps eliste ]
             \end{tabular}} [.NP dogs ] [.V sleep] ]
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{figure}

This is some text and the figure should be the size of the text not larger and not smaller.

\end{document}

Edit: Tried to do without the tabular environment, but adding the left/north option gives me a funny result. Look at the "man" in the following figure. It is too much north.

\documentclass{scrbook}

\usepackage{tikz-qtree}
\tikzset{every tree node/.style={align=left, anchor=north}}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\tikzset{level 1+/.style={level distance=3\baselineskip}}
\tikzset{frontier/.style={distance from root=12\baselineskip}}
\Tree[.{V[{\sc comps} { }]}
          [.{{1} NP} man ]
          [.{V[{\sc comps} { {1} }]} 
               [.{{2} NP} ketābāro ]
               [.{V[{\sc comps} { {1}, {2} }]}
                    [.{{3} PP} \edge[roof]; {be Sepide} ]
                    [.{V[{\sc comps} { {1}, {2}, {3} }]} dādam ]
               ]
          ]
]
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document} 

Answer 1

I am not sure if this is what you want to achieve:

\documentclass{scrbook}
\usepackage{tikz-qtree}

\begin{document}

This is some text and the figure should be the size of the text not larger and not smaller.

\begin{figure}[!ht]
\begin{tikzpicture}
\Tree [.V [.{\begin{tabular}[t]{@{}l@{}} spr eliste \\ comps eliste \end{tabular}} ] [.N tree ] ]
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}

This is some text and the figure should be the size of the text not larger and not smaller.

\end{document}

Answer 2

There's no need to wrap your complex node in a tabular environment. TikZ allows nodes to contain newlines provided you specify an explicit alignment for the text in the node.

So add the following line to your document:

\tikzset{every tree node/.style={align=left, anchor=north}}

or

\tikzset{every tree node/.style={align=center, anchor=north}}

And you don't need to use the tabulars at all.

\documentclass{scrbook}

\usepackage{tikz-qtree}
\tikzset{every tree node/.style={align=left, anchor=north}}
\begin{document}

\Tree [.V [.{[spr eliste \\ comps eliste]} ] [.NP dogs ] [.V sleep ] ] 

\end{document}

With respect to your edit, using anchor=north isn't appropriate for terminal nodes of the tree if you need the nodes to line up on a baseline. (I don't usually draw trees this way, so I wasn't thinking much about that.)

You can solve this problem by using:

\tikzset{every internal node/.style={align=left, anchor=north}}

or

\tikzset{every internal node/.style={align=center, anchor=north}}

The internal node key targets all the non-terminals in the tree.