Real Fan Request: Python Automation for Bulk Bill-of-Lading Watermark Replacement (Part 1)

A fan asked for a solution to batch‑replace a specific word in the header watermark of many foreign‑trade bill‑of‑lading .doc files while preserving the original font, color, and artistic style.

Manual editing is time‑consuming because each page requires opening the header, changing the artistic word, and re‑aligning the text; files can have ten to several hundred pages, leading to errors, missed changes, and formatting shifts that are hard to detect.

The author’s approach is to first convert the .doc files to .docx using WPS (since python‑docx does not handle .doc directly), then use the python‑docx library to locate the header paragraph, replace the target word, and save the result back to the original .doc format. The basic requirement is satisfied, though some client‑reported issues will be covered in a later article.

This post is the first of a seven‑part series that will detail the pitfalls encountered during the implementation and provide a step‑by‑step guide for the full automation workflow.