Experiencing very long Word text import time scenarios

[Textbook Perfect]

Over the past several weeks, I've experienced sometimes painfully long (5-15+ minutes) waits before a Word doc can be imported to Indesign. All of my work is creating books (most in excess of 240 pages), so Word docs come in many forms: coded (some to match Indesign) and uncoded, footnotes or endnotes, etc. Average word count in the docs is usually 75K or more. While some Word docs can be more complicated than others, I have never had this issue before. I have also had to force quit Indesign when the time to wait for import exceeds my patience. Is it due to the version of Word I am importing or what else could be causing this? It is happening on virtually every book I do.

[TᴀW]

When you import a Word document, a progress bar with a description is shown. At which exact point are you seeing the slowdown?

[Textbook Perfect]

The progress bar appears but takes several minutes before showing any progress. Tou get the spinning beachball and it just churns and churns. When it finally shows progress happening, the import goes quickly. It seems to have a diff time reading the Word doc or something.