How to make a signature field in LaTeX - latex

Question

When I'm writing my laboratory reports in LaTeX, I recently had to make a signature field on the form.
Trondheim 4.september 2009
______________________ ___________________________
Ivar Nesje Team mate's name
The problem was that I could not find a easy way to do it so after a lot of searching on the net I came up with this simple solution
\newcommand{\doubleSignature}[3]{
\begin{minipage}[c]{\textwidth}
\vspace{2cm}
\makebox[12cm][c]{
#1, \today
}
\vspace{3cm}
\makebox[12cm][c]{
\hfill \makebox[5cm][c] {\hrulefill} \hfill \makebox[5cm][c] {\hrulefill} \hfill
}
\makebox[12cm][c]{
\hfill #2 \hfill #3 \hfill
}
\vspace{1cm}
\end{minipage}
}
This allowed me to type;
\doubleSignature{Trondheim}{Ivar Nesje}{Team mate's name}
To achieve the wanted result. If any of you have another way of doing this, not using the letter document class, I'd be really glad to hear your suggestions.

Answer 1

I think I would work from \rule[<raise>]{<width>}{<thickness>}. Because the reference point is the lower left corner, you probably don't even need the optional raising argument. Something like:
\newcommand{\doublesignature}[3][Ivar Nesje]{%
\parbox{\textwidth}{
\centering #3 \today\\
\vspace{2cm}
\parbox{7cm}{
\centering
\rule{6cm}{1pt}\\
#1
}
\hfill
\parbox{7cm}{
\centering
\rule{6cm}{1pt}\\
#2
}
}
}
I've re-ordered your arguments to make your name optional.

Answer 2

Assuming there aren't additional formatting restrictions, I probably would have used a tabular environment instead of boxes, and I would have used \rule{length}{width} instead of \hrulefill:
\newcommand{\doubleSignature}[3]{
\vspace{2cm}
\begin{center}
#1, \today
\end{center}
\vspace{3cm}
\noindent
\begin{tabular}{lcl}
\rule{5cm}{1pt} & \hspace{2cm} & \rule{5cm}{1pt} \\
#2 & & #3
\end{tabular}
\vspace{1cm}
}