I have had this problem for nearly a year now and hope springs eternal that it will go away. When I enable iCloud for the Pages IOS app, this causes the Pages app to crash after about 30 seconds. I have taken to saving files in Dropbox and Box.com
iPhone 5, iOS 8.4.1, OS X 10.10.5
I can't describe how disappointing Pages is, especially on the iPad. I too am being forced to use Word and Dropbox. Apple seems to have slipped into mediocrity.
My problem partially resolved when I upgraded recently from an iPhone 5 to a 6 (I am always a year or so behind!)... now Pages does not crash - but ALL my files on iCloud Drive download to my phone and it takes forever... then makes the phone sluggish. So now it is a problem with iCloud- you should be able to download only specific files, not all 800 or so of them... so I have returned to my old workaround - i write in Pages and upload to Box.com. A few years ago Box had a special deal if you signed up within a few days - 50 gb of free storage. So far I have used about 8 gb and have almost everything there. I keep another copy on iCloud Drive and also back up my hard drive to an external once in a while.
I like Pages; cannot stand Word (never could, back in the day, I used WordPerfect) - so I write in Pages or iBooks Author and ignore iCloud pretty much.
Oh, I've done all that many times - but, as I say I can use Pages with iCloud on my new iPhone 6 - but cannot figure out a way to download only the files I am working on, rather than all 800 - the phone just does not have enough memory compared to my MacBook Air
Yes, any files stored in iCloud in the Pages folder will be downloaded to the device. The key ios to keep only those working files in Pages and store the others in an archive in a different location.
Pages IOS app crashes
