Signature in preface

Question

I would like to make a signature field in the preface which looks like this:

                           City(#1) \today



        ___________________           ______________________
              NAME (#2)                        NAME (#3)


                      __________________
                            NAME (#4)

I wold like it to be a \newcommand with 4 arguments.. The "city \today" and "NAME (#4) should be centered (textwidth) and NAME (#2) and NAME (#3) with some spacing to the margins..

my preface:

\documentclass[pdftex,10pt,b5paper,twoside]{report}
\usepackage[lmargin=25mm,rmargin=25mm,tmargin=27mm,bmargin=30mm]{geometry}

Answer 1

\documentclass{article}

\def\sig#1{\vbox{\hsize=5.5cm
    \kern2cm\hrule\kern1ex
    \hbox to \hsize{\strut\hfil #1 \hfil}}}

\newcommand\signatures[4]{%
\hbox to \hsize{\hfil #1, \today\hfil}
\hbox to \hsize{\quad\sig{#2}\hfil\hfil\sig{#3}\quad}
\hbox to \hsize{\hfil\sig{#4}\hfil}}


\begin{document}
\signatures{St. Anford}{John Doe}{Jane Doe}{James Doe}
\end{document}

Each signature line is 5.5cm long and you might want to change this in the definition of \sig. Likewise, each signature line provides 2cm of vertical space for the actual signature. One \quad of space is left to the margins - you could use here anything like \hskip1cm as well.

Answer 2

One possible solution would be to use a tabular environment (change the lengths according to your needs):

\documentclass[10pt,b5paper,twoside]{report}
\usepackage[lmargin=25mm,rmargin=25mm,tmargin=27mm,bmargin=30mm]{geometry}
\usepackage{array}

\newcommand\Signature[4]{\par\bigskip
  \setlength\tabcolsep{0pt}
  \begin{tabular}{@{\hspace{.05\textwidth}}>{\centering\arraybackslash}p{.4\textwidth}
      @{\hspace*{.1\textwidth}}>{\centering\arraybackslash}p{.4\textwidth}@{\hspace{.05\textwidth}}}
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{#1, \today} \\[10ex]
  \rule{.4\textwidth}{0.4pt} & \rule{.4\textwidth}{0.4pt} \\
  #2 & #3 \\[10ex]
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{\rule{.4\textwidth}{0.4pt}} \\
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{#4}
\end{tabular}
\par
}
\begin{document}

\Signature{G\"ottingen}{David Hilbert}{Emmy Noether}{Hermann Minkowski}

\end{document}