How to get specific formatting

Question

I have laid out below a specific type of formatting I want to achieve. I have a few lines of underlines with text immediately below those underlines explaining what is meant to fill it in. There are three things to note:

1. The name section should be left-justified, or at least all the way against the left margin.

2. The date section should be right-justified, or at least such that the date line is against the right margin.

3. The top of the document defines \setlength{\parskip}{1em} so there is extra space between normal paragraphs. On this page only, I'd need to override that setting so that the lines have little to now spacing between them.

I'm really having trouble coming up with something which addresses all three issues.

Answer 1

You can set spaced-out [t]op-aligned tabulars. Inside the tabular, \parskip doesn't have an effect:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{showframe,lipsum}

\newlength{\signaturelength}\newlength{\datelength}
\setlength{\signaturelength}{.5\linewidth}% Adjust to suit your needs
\setlength{\datelength}{.2\linewidth}% Adjust to suit your needs
\newcommand{\signatureblock}[1]{%
  \begin{tabular}[t]{@{} p{\signaturelength} @{} }
    \hline
    #1
  \end{tabular}}
\newcommand{\dateblock}[1]{%
  \begin{tabular}[t]{@{} p{\datelength} @{} }
    \hline
    #1
  \end{tabular}}

\begin{document}

\lipsum[1]

\vspace{4\bigskipamount}

\noindent
\signatureblock{Person 1 \\ Joe Schmoe} \hfill
\dateblock{Date}

\vspace{4\baselineskip}

\noindent
Approvided by:

\vspace{4\baselineskip}

\noindent
\signatureblock{Person 2 \\ Sally Sue} \hfill
\dateblock{Date}

\vspace{4\bigskipamount}

\noindent
\signatureblock{Person 3 \\ Jack Everyman} \hfill
\dateblock{Date}

\vspace{4\bigskipamount}

\noindent
\signatureblock{Person 4 \\ Lorem Ipsum} \hfill
\dateblock{Date}

\end{document}

\noindent removes the default \parindent set at the start of every paragraph.

Redefine \signaturelength and \datelength to suit your needs.

Answer 2

The code might seem overkill, but it places every detail in a single place, so it's easier to change uniformly the appearance.

The frame is due to \usepackage{showframe}, remove it for the production version.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{parskip}

\usepackage{showframe,lipsum} % for the example

\newcommand{\sigrule}[1]{\makebox[#1\textwidth]{\hrulefill}}

\newcommand{\signatureblock}[1]{%
  \par
  \vspace{3\baselineskip} % adjust to suit
  \noindent
  \begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{@{\extracolsep{\fill}}ll@{}}
  \sigrule{0.5} & \sigrule{0.2} \\ % adjust to suit
  \begin{tabular}[t]{@{}l@{}} #1 \end{tabular} & Date
  \end{tabular*}\par
}
\newcommand{\signote}[1]{%
  \par
  \vspace{3\baselineskip}% adjust to suit
  \noindent#1\par
}

\begin{document}

\lipsum[1]

\signatureblock{Person 1 \\ Joe Schmoe}

\signote{Approved by:}

\signatureblock{Person 2 \\ Sally Sue}

\signatureblock{Person 3 \\ Jack Everyman}

\signatureblock{Person 4 \\ Lorem Ipsum}

\end{document}