Hi Paul, I just received a reply from the lisp code author - Lee. Below is his reply,
The Whilst it's possible to use ObjectDBX to directly interface with the drawing database and make changes to attribute values in an unopened drawing (as implemented in my Global Attribute Editor), I abandoned the use of this technique when developing my Batch Attribute Editor, as the ObjectDBX interface has several known bugs.
• A misalignment of attribute references whose justification is set to something other than 'Left'
• The loss of the drawing thumbnail
• An inability to save the drawing in formats other than the native format (i.e. highest available version in the host application)
Many thanks.