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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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