Microsoft Word and Automator

Are any Word documents returned when you get the folder contents? It looks like there is at least one (Copy Doc).

The "missing value" means that the Open action got passed an empty object. I can't tell you why.

I don't have those actions, but I would assume you do not need to open them in order to run the find and replace action.

Also note that everything is passed down the workflow chain, so the original folder from Get Specified Finder Items is being passed into Open Word Documents and the Find/Replace action, along with the contents of that folder.

What do the Open Word Documents and Find and Replace actions expect as input? Select them in the Library list and it will tell you what they want passed. If it is purely Word Documents and not files and folders, then you would need to filter for Word documents before those actions.

Your Open Word Documents is receiving a lot of stuff that is not a Word document. That may be the problem.

As you can see, Open Word Documents expects "Files of type .docx, .doc, .txt, .rtf, .html." It may not be smart enough to verify what they are before attempting to open them. Or, it may be the folders that are returning empty items to the Action.

What does Find and Replace expect to receive?

I don't have these Actions, so I can't look them up myself.

I was wondering where you got them.

Office 2011 came with that slew of Automator Actions. They weren't provided with 2016 or 2019.

I imagine they do not work at all.

The Find and Replace implies that it should just need documents, not open ones.

Instead of the Open Word documents action, you could use a Run AppleScript action to pluck the individual Word documents fed into it from the previous action, open each one in a loop, and scrutinize the Word AppleScript dictionary to determine support for find/replace, and other document properties. Launch Script Editor, and File menu : Open Dictionary… : Word.

on run {input, parameters}

tell application "Word"
   -- process each Word document passed into this action
   repeat with anItem in input
   -- set docx to open anItem
   -- any relevant find/replace supported commands from Word scripting dictionary
   -- close docx
   end repeat
end tell
return

end run