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jethro's picture

Permutations in Excel

I posted an article about Permutations in Excel once before, back in 2005. I actually made a mistake in my example, and was corrected by a reader in a comment- thanks MathBoss.

I have since had another reader, Dam ask a question that I am not sure of the answer of. So I am opening it up to you Excel experts out there.

Here is the question as Dan wrote it.

How in Excel can I create ALL permutations of a given data set. for example, imagine 5 columns. Each column has a differnet (sic) number of unique entries. Column 1 can be A, B. Column 2 could be A, B, C, D, E and so on. I want to combine 1 item of each 5 columns and keep doing it until I create all possible combinations. The number of permutations (PERMUT) may be very large so I need to automate this. I'd like to avoid building a macro since I am sick of building them and I like the static spreadsheet challenge more.

Add your answers in the comments.

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Lena's picture

Syncing OneNote to to SharePoint

If you have a OneNote notebook on SharePoint with some of these errors:

  • An 'infobar' appears at the top of the page in OneNote saying you don't have permission to sync to that section file
  • You may have failed to create a new notebook on that SharePoint location
  • You may have failed to open the notebook

Check out David Rasmussen's Blog for a few answers to these problems.

Lena's picture

The Search Machine - Registry Software Key Retrieval

You've got a legal copy, installed and activated. Then your machine goes and blows up on you and you have to install it again. Where's the product key? If your anything like me it probably went out in the rubbish some time ago.
The Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder is a freeware utility that retrieves your Product Key (cd key) used to install windows from your registry. It has the options to copy the key to clipboard, save it to a text file, or print it for safekeeping. It works on Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Windows Vista, Office XP, Office 2003, and Office 2007.

Source, Doug Klippert

jethro's picture

Excel Slow? It may be the Google Desktop application causing it.

Has your Excel application slowed down lately? Have you installed the Google Desktop Application?

They may be related. Dick from Daily Dose of Excel reports this article taken from Charles Williams web page.

This report comes from Charles Williams of DecisionModels.com fame. Charles knows a thing or two about performance in Excel.

For the last few weeks I have been trying to find out
why clearing a large range of cells caused Excel to hang on some PCs
but not on others. This does not happen with Excel 97, but does with
Excel 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2007.