Combination Help

[dramos77]

I have a sheet with 8 columns and 5 unique words in each column - 1 word per cell. How can I generate all of the possible combinations by taking only 1 word from each column to generate a lost of 8 words. Is this even possible? I am above average with basic excel but have not used macros or anything else.
Thanks

 

[Eric W]

Welcome to the forum.

You do realize that will generate 390625 combinations? What will you do with them all? Far too many to eyeball.

But if you really want, it's possible to do it, with a macro, or even just formulas. For example, here's a link to a thread with a macro that does almost exactly what you want:

Modify a code to run all possible combinations

This concatenates all the words into a single cell. I assume you'd want them separated by commas, or in different cells. Let me know how you want the results displayed, and I can customize something.

 

[dramos77]

Hi and thanks, I have below a layout of what I am starting with. I would like to get different combinations by taking only one word from each column, in order, to get a result of different words. Is this possible? Would that narrow it down from 30,000?

aro	alu	djh	mev	jho	lmi	dad	jla
mry	dpr	lbe	dmu	jaj	icr	lfi	ede
kco	tta	abrjne	gta	dwo	mcr	rco	dca
cpa	mc	dfr	gol	tmo	dho	jre	dpa
rwi	ema	tpr	mbr	cmc	swa	mly	aco

<tbody>
</tbody>

 

[Eric W]

I still feel like I don't understand what you want. But you can try the macro and see how well it works for you and report back.

Open a new workbook. Press Alt-F11 to open the VBA editor. From the menu, select Insert > Module. Go to the link I gave you in post #2 , and copy the code from post #1 of that thread into the VBA page that just opened. Now go back to Excel, and paste your starting layout onto Sheet1. Make sure you have a Sheet2. Then with Sheet1 showing, press Alt-F8 to open the macro selector, choose Permute and click Run. Your list should now be on Sheet2.

But based on what I see, you'll still get 390,625 combinations. Let me know if that's what you want.