A `TeX` arrow is seemingly vertically centered with the height of an x-character, in this case the final `e`:

```
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Source $\rightarrow$ Target
\end{document}

```

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bg0A2.png)

A `TikZ` arrow, on the other hand, seems to be vertically centered with a cap-height character, in this case the capital `S` and `T`:

```
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    \draw [thick, ->] (0,0) -- (1,0);
    \node[left] at (0,0) {Source};
    \node[right] at (1,0) {Target};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document} 

```

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JsOGN.png)

Since the word on the left ends in an x-height character and the word on the right begins with a cap-height character, this creates the optical illusion (at least for me) that the word on the right is placed higher up than the word on the left. I'd like to avoid this by centering the `TikZ` arrow vertically with an x-height character. How can I do this?

---

**EDIT**

Actually I just noticed that this isn't an optical illusion. The word on the right *is* placed higher because it contains the letter `g` that goes below the baseline. To avoid this problem right now (I guess it should be a separate question), consider the following example. The arrow is not centered with respect to the preceding `e`, and that looks wrong to me:

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/w3TlE.png)