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I sometimes need to get edits to my papers from non-LaTeX users. Do you have any clever methods of collaborating with them (or even other LaTeX users) in a productive way?

By this I mean sharing edits. So I have a document I've written in LaTeX, and they want to edit it, correct spelling and grammar, suggest additions, and so on.

(Disclaimer: I currently am part of Overleaf's support staff)

For none-LaTeX users one might try to use Overleaf's rich text mode, which should be quite easy to use for standard formattings.

Also the comment and track changes features of Overleaf can be very handy to get input from others (if it's just reviewing tasks).

Having been asked to provide comments on quite a few documents to which I would not have access to the original, I have adopted the following method:

1. Request the file in pdf form; it must have either clear page numbers or line numbers (or both).




2. Reading through the pdf file on screen, open a text file and enter comments in the form
   
     p.n, col.n, para.n, l.n -- "text being commented on", <comment>
   
   If a commented item spans more than one page, column, line, then "pp.", "cols.", "ll." is specified. An extensive text can be specified as "XX ... YY", as long as the extent of the text is unambiguous.




3. Return the comment file by email.

The result has never been questioned, except when I've inadvertently misidentified something. The method has been used for comments on The TeXbook, articles for publication (not for TUGboat, where I do have access to the source), and several books whose sources have been in (La)TeX, Word, or gosh knows what else. It's maybe more verbose than other methods, but it has the virtue of not being able to foul up the original, which is always appreciated.

1. Convert the LaTeX document to Word, send them that. I use https://online2pdf.com which does a decent job, if there aren't too many figures or strange formatting. However, it involves sending my files to an unknown party that could be archiving them, selling the data, etc. It also often screws up formatting pretty hard, and can take up to an hour to fix that, and once or twice I've just given up. On the plus side, I've never encountered another Track Changes feature as good as Words, as it tracks character by character instead of just highlighting the whole line like diff. Plus changes in font size and whatnot mean you get hypenated words in the middle of paragraphs. Still the most ideal option a lot of the time. This is what I use with a lot of collaborators.




2. Have them print it out and edit it with a pen. Not exactly environmentally friendly, but I know a lot of people who will do this anyway, even if given a word doc with track changes on. However, my girlfriend doesn't own a printer. This is what I use with my boss.




3. Have them edit the TeX file even if they don't know LaTeX. I don't get why so many people oppose this, it isn't like the body text has much formatting in it, but they rarely will try this. Reading raw TeX is kinda a pain though, as it isn't formatted for the human eye, and I put one sentence per line, which makes it harder to read.




4. Send the PDF output to my collaborators and have them add sticky notes using PDF annotations. Viewers supporting creation of sticky notes include Adobe Reader, Foxit Reader, and Okular. Many other viewers support showing sticky notes, like Evince.

When I'm working with other TeX users I tend to use git for collaboration if they are used to working with it. If they are not used to working with git they will be afterwards :)

Frankly I do not understand the purpose of this question. If this is a collaboration on contents, one can just share the information in whatever format is convenient, e.g. emails, data files, pdf files, ascii text. Once you wrap up you need to agree on the document preparation system. From the question I infer that this will be LaTeX.

Of course, if the question is how to jointly grow a document that has cross links, references and so on, then IMHO there is no other way than recommending them to quickly look at a LaTeX intro. They will have to know how to label an equation that they want to refer to later. If you prepared the basic document well, i.e. just use some standard class, basic packages and avoid introducing too many self-written macros, they will be able to focus on the contents and add some text here and there. Just make sure that no one introduces glorious definitions as for instance defaalpha. Also tell them that adding references by hand is not an option.