Latex letter signature as image

23 Comments

Trying to place an image (scan of one’s signature) between the closing and the name in a letter will unfortunately not result in a nice formatting. Latex automtically adds some space for a manual signature between the closing and the printed name. This space will not automatically disappear if you place your signature as an image there. Neither will it disappear if you place the image directly in the \signature declaration. But, as you might have guessed, there is a work-around:

Remove the \signature{Your name} declaration (see this sample letter) and just replace the \closing{Yours Faithfully,} by:

% Preamble
\usepackage{graphicx}

% Main text
\closing{Yours faithfully,\\
\fromsig{\includegraphics[scale=1]{signature.jpg}} \\
\fromname{Your name}
}

For more information, consider the letter package documentation.

23 Comments

  4. hqube

    Thanks. I’ve been looking for this. This one of the last reasons why I’m not using tex for most of my document needs. JPG/PNG didn’t work for me though. I used EPS instead.

    I would just like to add; To ovelap the signature image with the signature name, add a negative \vspace before \fromname.

    Reply

  5. noname

    “This space will not automatically disappear … “: it does if you set the parameter in [ ]: \closing{Sincerely, \\[0.0in] \includegraphics ….. name}.

    Reply

  6. t

    noname’s comment worked for me.

    I was using \signature, but the extra space after \closing was annoying.

    Reply

  10. STK

    The above, while simple to implement, will not remove the space allocated for the signature block in the letter. It simply makes it “empty” space and adds the signature elements into the \closing{} text. LaTeX will still put in this space after the \closing{} text when compiling. This will cause an overflow and breaking to a new page prematurely. I found this out the hard way while trying to keep a letter to a single page.

    You can change how \closing{} works by including the following in the header:

    \renewcommand{\closing}[1]{\par\nobreak\vspace{\parskip}%
\stopbreaks
\noindent
\ifx\@empty\fromaddress\else
\hspace*{\longindentation}\fi
\parbox{\indentedwidth}{\raggedright
	\ignorespaces #1\\[0.0in]%
	\ifx\@empty\fromsig
		\fromname
\else \fromsig \fi\strut}%
\par}

    Then, just add the image to the \signature{} command as:

    \signature{\includegraphics[height=.7in]{Signature.png} \\ Your Name}

    and things should work fine with no extra (blank) space after the signature block.

    Reply

  12. _pascal_

    you can use this to set the space between \closing and \signature

    \@setplength{sigbeforevskip}{0pt}

    Reply

    • tom

      Hi Narph,

      This only works when using the LaTeX standard document class letter. Below is a complete minimal example.

      Hope this help,
      Tom

      \documentclass{letter}
\address{Street \\ City \\ Country}
\begin{document}
\begin{letter}{Company name \\ Street\\ City\\ Country}
\opening{Dear Sir or Madam:}
\dots
\closing{Yours faithfully,\\
\fromsig{\rule{2cm}{1cm}} \\
\fromname{Your name}
}
\ps{P.S. Here goes your ps.}
\encl{Enclosures.}
\end{letter}
\end{document}
      Reply

  15. Mat Hunt

    The above throws up error after error. To begin with \fromname and \fromsig are undefined commands. then it complains that there is no line to end.

    Reply

    • tom

      Dear Mat,

      Thanks for your comment. The code works on my system, although I should have stated that it requires the graphicx package to be loaded. Could it be that you have a somewhat older TeX version/distribution? Unfortunately, in the letter class change history it doesn’t say when \fromname and \fromsig was added.

      Best, Tom

      \documentclass{letter}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\address{Street \\ City \\ Country}
\begin{document}
\begin{letter}{Company name \\ Street\\ City\\ Country}
\opening{Dear Sir or Madam:}
\dots
\closing{Yours faithfully,\\
\fromsig{\rule{3cm}{1cm}} \\
\fromname{Your name}
}
\ps{P.S. Here goes your ps.}
\encl{Enclosures.}
\end{letter}
\end{document}
      Reply

  16. Alexander

    I’d reccomend this instead as you don’t have to do a weird hack with closing:
    “`
    \signature{\includegraphics[scale=0.1]{img.png}\\Your name}
    “`

    Reply

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