Can I use Win32 COM to replace text inside a word document?

Question

I have to perform a large number of replacements in some documents, and the thing is, I would like to be able to automate that task. Some of the documents contain common str

Answer 1

See if this gives you a start on word automation using python.

Once you open a document, you could do the following.
After the following code, you can Close the document & open another.

Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find
    .Text = "test"
    .Replacement.Text = "test2"
    .Forward = True
    .Wrap = wdFindContinue
    .Format = False
    .MatchCase = False
    .MatchWholeWord = False
    .MatchKashida = False
    .MatchDiacritics = False
    .MatchAlefHamza = False
    .MatchControl = False
    .MatchWildcards = False
    .MatchSoundsLike = False
    .MatchAllWordForms = False
End With
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

The above code replaces the text "test" with "test2" and does a "replace all".
You can turn other options true/false depending on what you need.

The simple way to learn this is to create a macro with actions you want to take, see the generated code & use it in your own example (with/without modified parameters).

EDIT: After looking at some code by Matthew, you could do the following

MSWord.Documents.Open(filename)
Selection = MSWord.Selection

And then translate the above VB code to Python.
Note: The following VB code is shorthand way of assigning property without using the long syntax.

(VB)

With Selection.Find
    .Text = "test"
    .Replacement.Text = "test2"
End With

Python

find = Selection.Find
find.Text = "test"
find.Replacement.Text = "test2"

Pardon my python knowledge. But, I hope you get the idea to move forward.
Remember to do a Save & Close on Document, after you are done with the find/replace operation.

In the end, you could call MSWord.Quit (to release Word object from memory).