[Tex/LaTex] Good Style of Creating a Signature all within LaTeX

fontslettersrulestext-decorations

I have a small task that involves trying to get a signature using LaTeX fonts. I want to be able to make the signature look as handwritten as possible (pen/marker) using the LaTeX fonts.

Also like to control the location place of the signature on the horizontal line (i.e., placing it in the front, middle, or towards the end of the line.

Also, to mention, it would be nice to be able to get the text to go through the line and come back above the line just how a typical signature would resemble.

This is an example of what I would like for the output signature:

Example Signature:1

Below is how I would like it to be instead of having the X in front of the signature.

Example Signature:2

Best Answer

Here are some options using the soul package for underlining, hardcoding a couple of spaces ~ before and after the signature, and using different fonts from The LaTeX Font Catalogue. I'm particularly proud of the middle name Quegpylf that I coined to have many descenders, i.e. letters going below the baseline.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{soul}% for the underlining 
\usepackage[doublespacing]{setspace}% just to set the samples further apart

\usepackage{emerald}% for 1-4
\usepackage{frcursive}% for 5
\usepackage{inslrmin}% for 6

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\begin{document}

JD: {\ECFJD\setul{0.1ex}{}\ul{~~John Quegpylf Doe~~}}

Skeetch: {\ECFSkeetch\setul{0.1ex}{}\ul{~~John Quegpylf Doe~~}}

Teen Spirit: {\ECFTeenSpirit\setul{-0.1ex}{0.3pt}\ul{~~John Quegpylf Doe~~}}

Tall Paul: {\ECFTallPaul\setul{0.15ex}{}\ul{~~John Quegpylf Doe~~}}

French Cursive: {\cursive\setul{0.1ex}{}\ul{~~John Quegpylf Doe~~}}

Insular Minuscule: {\iminfamily\setul{0.1ex}{}\ul{~~John Quegpylf Doe~~}}

\end{document}

signatures

As Ulrike pointed out, you can raise and lower the underlines using \setul{}{}. The first argument changes the underline depth (which means distance to the baseline afaik), the second one the underline thickness, which I altered for Teen Spirit. You can play around with these values to your liking.

On another note, if you don't like any of these fonts, you could as well use XeLaTeX and choose any font on your system. For help read Using XeLaTeX instead of pdfLaTeX and Frequently loaded packages: Differences between pdfLaTeX and XeLaTeX.

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