Yeah. You don’t even have to paste in each of your documents.
Yeah, I can number it that way. I get that.
So I number, compile to rtf, send the rtf doc to my colleage.
He tells me that paragraph 27 is way too long and should be split. So I split it.
Later he says, that aardvark has only 3 ‘a’s in it and not four in paragraph 34.
But I’ve split 27, and so 34 is now 35.
Or I inserted an unnumbered something, and the numbering has reset for the rest of the document.
One work around would be to figure out a way to number from the BOTTOM. I tried doing my edits started at the bottom of his list. That is also confusing.
That’s not how.
Your collaborator tells you “this … in paragraph 34”.
You go in your reference document to see what is “paragraph 34” for him/her.
You note the opening words (mentally).
Then you go to paragraph 34 in your real WIP version, as per Scrivener’s paragraph numbering. You are either on the spot or close. Locate the opening words.
That’s it.
Re-compile a fresh updated version whenever you feel it is justified, and instruct your collaborator(s) to now use this new version.
(Unless you add new content, I don’t see why you should, though.)
. . . . . . .
By the way :
If you have multiple documents, you can set <$n> to reset at each, and design a compile format to spawn a numbering that’s in the form of [1-23] … [7-15]
. . . . . . . .
Hmm… no. I wouldn’t spend energy on that. 
I think maybe a missing ingredient here then is how useful phrase matching is for working with reader notes, in Scrivener. I typically tell people who are sending me notes to just copy and paste the phrase and then annotate the fix below it, because then I don’t have to do the look-up myself, based on page numbers and section numbering that isn’t in the project anyway—it’s less work for both of us.
To apply that to what you’re going for though:
- You import your numbered copy into the binder, along with the numbered copy you send to readers.
- They send notes, and you look them up in the reference copy. Select a chunk of text from the numbered line and Copy it.
- Hit the shortcut for Quick Search (found in
Edit ▸ Find ▸ Quick Search), Paste and hit Return.
That will almost always take you straight to the spot you want, so long as you put your reference copy below the Draft folder, so that the secondary search result is below the primary result from the Draft in the list. It will scroll you right to where you need to go.
The numbered reference copy then becomes your quick access tool for translating reader notes into something useful to Scrivener. When the next batch goes out, you delete your reference copy from the binder and refresh it with the newly numbered output.
But yeah, if your readers are flexible, consider going the route I have and encourage them to copy and paste a sentence as an “anchor” instead of using the whole numbering system. It’s no more work for them really.
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