Increase LaTeX table row height

To increase the row height in a table you can either increase the \extrarowheight through something like

\setlength\extrarowheight{5pt}

or stretch the row through something like

\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.2}

as Thorsten Donig points out in the above comment.

IMHO, the best way to increase the height and keep the vertical alignment is to add the space when you break the row with \\, for example with \\[5pt].

This is an example (I've exaggerated a little with 50pt here)

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}

\newcolumntype{M}[1]{>{\centering\arraybackslash}m{#1}}
\newcolumntype{N}{@{}m{0pt}@{}}


\begin{document}

\begin{table}[ht]
\begin{tabular}{|M{4cm}|M{4cm}|N}
\hline
\textbf{Text} & \textbf{Text} &\\[50pt]
\hline
text & text&\\[50pt]
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document} 

Note that I've added a column as the last one defined as @{}m{0pt}@{} to avoid the issue described here: Vertical alignment in table: m-column, row size - problem in last column.

Output

Super Simple Solution

_{I faced similar problem, & found a (not so conventional but) simple way to solve it. Wish, it will help others too.}

---

I had a table like this-

\begin{tabular}{c|ccc}
$x$ & 1 & 2 & 3\\ \hline
$f(x)$ & 1 & 2 & 3
\end{tabular}

And, I wanted to put some extra space before the second row-

So, I inserted an extra empty line-

\begin{tabular}{c|ccc}
$x$ & 1 & 2 & 3\\ \hline 
\\
$f(x)$ & 1 & 2 & 3
\end{tabular}

But, now I had put too much space there-

So, I used negative line spacing to reduce it-

\begin{tabular}{c|ccc}
$x$ & 1 & 2 & 3\\ \hline 
\\[-1em]
$f(x)$ & 1 & 2 & 3
\end{tabular}

Great! everything was perfect-

Use package easytable

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[thinlines]{easytable}
\begin{document}

\begin{TAB}(r,1cm,2cm)[5pt]{|c|c|}{|c|c|c|}% (rows,min,max)[tabcolsep]{columns}{rows}
hi & tall one    \\
hi & medium one  \\
hi & standard one\\
\end{TAB}

\end{document}