Microsoft Word Constantly Freezing

[Tefler]

I'm trying to work on Microsoft Word 2010 on a Windows 8 laptop and am getting increasingly frustrated at the number of times the document freezes before allowing me to proceed. It seems that I get that twirling circle (the equivalent of the old egg-timer) every time I ask it to insert a text box or copy some text - sometimes just when I want to start a new paragraph. It at least doubles the length of time any particular job should take.

Does anybody have any idea why this might be happening - and, more to the point, how to stop it?

[Buenchico]

Something appears to be hogging most of the memory (and/or CPU capacity) on your laptop. Open the Task Manager and click on the Processes tab to see if you can identify what it is.

Also scan your laptop for malware, which is a common cause of such problems. Download, install and run the free version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware:
https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/
(NB: When installing it, take care to deselect the pre-ticked option to take a free trial of the Premium version)