# Sharing notes in an editable format?

This question isn't really about lecture notes in themselves, like these questions (Hand out lecture notes or not? or Is it better to provide students with guided notes or to have them write their own notes, or both?). Rather it's about, if you were to give out notes, would you give them out in an editable format (rather than, say, a static pdf)?

I've sometimes given out class notes, but they've happened to always be pre-printed or pdf format for students to print out. Either way, they can personalize the actual text. And I'm wondering if, in providing notes, I should also provide what made those notes, like an editable document (like Word) or give the LaTeX code.

As how some people learn from their own notes, or from others', or how they learn from writing it by hand, or by computer font, it might be possible they could learn also by adapting and rephrasing things. All the time, I've reworked writings from textbooks for my own learning and teaching but it can be difficult if one has to start from the beginning. Although they might not reformat the equations due to not knowing how to do it, by providing the editable files, they could rework the words in a way that they understand. For example, they could add in ALL CAPS or ***'s around things that need more attention.

• They can still print the pdfs, of course. – Sue VanHattum Aug 14 '20 at 18:19
• What kind of input device are you expecting students to have? If you assume that they have a tablet of some kind, a .pdf is fine, as they can write directly onto the .pdf using something like Notability (I'm sure that there is a Windows equivalent, and probably about 47 open source / Linux act-alikes. On the other hand, if they only have access to a keyboard and mouse, things are likely to be more difficult. – Xander Henderson Aug 15 '20 at 5:22
• Do not give out editable lecture notes. While most students will use them with good intention, you could have your name/notes associated with poorly adapted notes or trolls tarnishing your reputation with inappropriate content added in the notes. – PhysicsMathsLove Aug 15 '20 at 20:57
• If lecture was only to take notes, which most of the time are rehashed from textbooks, then there was no reason to begin with. – Mark Fantini Aug 16 '20 at 2:15

I wouldn't share my notes' source code so lightly in this context, and the possible costs are greater than the almost inexistent benefits. There certainly are security concerns as @PhysicsMathsLove's comment shows, not to mention possible venues for plagiarism, and most students don't know $$\LaTeX$$ enough to typeset their own notes or simply can't be bothered to, as it's a very lengthy process.
Many .pdf viewers allow you to insert comments without the need to edit the source code, so if it's just to write some quick notes I don't see the benefit in sharing the original code. Some programs such as Xournal++ even let you type $$\LaTeX$$ equations over a .pdf, so long as a valid TeX environment is installed in your system.