Ok this little post was in response to a question on a facebook group i belong too, and to give this topic some justice ( and some screenshots ) i thought it better to do it on Le-Blog.
Many now have an iPad and possibly bought the pages app with the “guidance” of the apple sales dude, Whilst pages is a great app ( i love any thing apple tech related! ) it is “quirky” at best when opening non .pages files.
To upload a word document from a computer you will need to use your iCloud account , or dropbox / sugarsync ( this is a little more detailed to use and will explain later! ) , Log into www.icloud.com and click iWork , then click the pages button , then click the little “cog” to right and select the file you want to upload , and upload it!
Then on your iPad , start up pages and get to your Documents area , you will magically see the document there, Now with word documents you “may” see the below :-
This means if you do open it, it will be turned into a .pages file, which means if you want to use it again via Word on a computer you will have to “share” the document from pages as an email selecting send it as a word file , The same does apply if you use DropBox or SugarSync!
Now Dropbox / SugarSync , Both these services are free ( dropbox 1GB free / Sugarsync 5GB free storage ) create an account with one of these , install the software on your computer and download the free app on your iPad.
Simple drop the document into the default Shared Document folder ( or make your own custom folders within the dropbox / sugarsync system ) , On the iPad start up the dropbox / sugarsync app ( login for the first time ) locate the file.
Here are the screenshots of a Word Doc being opened in Pages ( or could be any other word app, as you can see ive Quick Office there too! )
More info on the QuickOffice Pro for i pad is here ( http://www.quickoffice.com/quickoffice_pro_hd_ipad/ ) i personally like it VERY much as i can use dropbox / sugarsync etc all natively in the app, rather than having to sent it to Pages , and then wait for Pages to “import / convert ”
Hope this helps!!