I can’t open my pages files

ios 11.1.1 on iPad Pro. All of a sudden, I can see a preview of my pages documents, but I cannot open them. When I connected to my MacBook, I was able to drag a file from the itunes window to my desktop, and it opened just fine.

I have also been having trouble with "grayed out" pdf files on the iPad.

Until Apple came up with that recent files folder, and central documents folder, there was never an issue about files opening. You opened an app, opened the file you wanted. Simple. What can I do to open these files on my iPad as I used to?

I do not sync my documents with iCloud, nor do I want to, so please don’t suggest that. One thing I did notice, and am almost afraid it is part of the problem, is that although when I set up my iPad after upgrading, I turned on iCloud to sync only my bookmarks and notes, some of my iTunes settings had been changed for me! Two days later when I went to sync through iTunes, I saw that sync settings had been changed to include iCloud calendars, not just my home calendar, and all my photos, rather than only those I chose to sync. iCloud Drive is not turned on, some iCloud settings had set to unwanted defaults. I don’t recall which they were, but the problem with Pages and PDFs not opening occurred before I turned the settings off, and remain. My settings do say that these files reside in local storage.