I have Win XP Home & Office 2003

What settings in Excel can I change to get back control of Excel?

When I have a file open and am editing or typing in data, I can only enter a
dozen or so keystrokes, and then Excel is doing something for 4 or 5 seconds,
and I can't edit more cells during that time. This cycle keeps repeating, and
it takes 2 or 3 times longer than it should to enter my data.

I have looked at the autosave feature but can't seem to find the problem.

Leonard