Software For Easy Collaborative Writing/Editing?

[Mayo]

I have this fantasy where I can digitally transmit a manuscript to others for fact-checking, etc. so they can read it on their computers and add notes, etc....

I don't mind having specialized software on my Mac to create the editable file but the resulting text file would need to be accessible to others without the necessity of installing additional costly software on their computers... And, of course, it would be really great if the manuscript is editable on either a Mac or PC!  (Some of my folks use Macs but there is no guarantee that everyone will be using Macs...)

Some people may prefer working on a hard copy manuscript so I am prepared to provide it, but a software option would be nice... I would like to be able to work on a manuscript both digitally and analog.

I have just started looking into it this morning and my first inclination is to use the PDF format, but so far I haven't turned up much regarding third-party editing capabilities. I'm hoping that someone here can save me some time and point me in the "write" direction...

[jwboyd]

Won't MS Word do this interchangeably on Mac and Windows?

[Mayo]

I would like to keep my Mac a "Microsoft-Free Zone" if at all possible... And even if I did use Word, wouldn't the other folks also need to use Word in order to add their notes/edits?

I wonder if NeoOffice has the feature...?

[jwboyd]

In a Word, YES.

(Please pardon the pun.)

I know nothing about NeoOffice. Sorry.

Joe

[Mayo]

In my online travels today I stumbled upon Acrobat.com (Beta). The "Buzzword" component may be what I am looking for...

From the FAQ:  "There are three potential roles in a Buzzword document: co-author, reviewer, and reader. A co-author has full editing privileges while a reviewer can only add comments to a document but cannot edit the text. A reader can access the document but cannot make any changes."

Access to a document can be open to anyone or restricted. The reviewer option is what I need since my co-author(s) will be sending their work directly to me for inclusion in the manuscript.

[Paddy]

Buzzword does sound cool. I was going to suggest Google Docs which might also work.

[Mayo]

Paddy, I signed up for Acrobat.com and Google Docs today. Now I get to play around with both options... It took a couple of tries using Google but I found a number of online options including Zoho.

Buzzword is PDF-centric.  You can convert up to five documents a month for free using the Web interface or Acrobat Reader 9.  If you need to create more PDFs, you either have to subscribe to an online Adobe service for $9.95 or purchase a copy of Adobe Acrobat.  Apparently uploading a PDF created using the built-in capability of OS X or another application is not possible.

[sandbox]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfedit/