Since there is no Office for tablets except for that Windows 8 RT thing (please ignore that thing) you are going to discover that this is a media consumption, email, web browsing nice thing and not a replacement for laptops and such.
Maybe someday but beware those that tell you can schlep your files over and open them. Some do open in Pages (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2693956?start=0&tstart=0 for example. plenty of discussions about that.)
You may wonder why the Word documents get so screwed up so let's tell why now. It's very simple. Word formats a document based on the printer you have installed. The iPad has no printer drivers so how to render a document without metrics from the printer? You see the problem now.
Bob
Having used PCs all my life I'm just about to take the plunge and get an iPad 4, because everyone says its the best on the market.
However I have a lasting trauma from 15 years ago when on one occasion I was trying to take work from a Mac to a PC and the files were totally incompatible, causing a major office disaster.
I am assuming that incompatibility is no longer an issue, and that I'll be able to send files from iPad to PC and vice versa. Am I right?

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