The COMBINA function in Excel is used to calculate the number of combinations with repetitions allowed for a given number of items. This can be particularly useful in scenarios where you want to determine how many ways you can choose items, where the order does not matter and repetitions are allowed.
Syntax
COMBINA(number, number_chosen)
- `number`: This is the total number of items or objects.
- `number_chosen`: This is the number of items to choose, which can be chosen repeatedly.
Usage
- Open Excel and identify the cell where you want to display the results of the COMBINA function.
- Enter the formula using the syntax described above. For example, type `=COMBINA(5, 3)` into a cell and press Enter.
- Interpreting Results:
- This formula calculates the number of ways to choose 3 items from a set of 5, where each item can be selected more than once.
Example
Imagine you have 5 types of fruits and you want to find out how many different combinations of 3 fruits you can have, allowing repetitions. Using the formula:
=COMBINA(5, 3)
Excel will return 35, which means there are 35 different combinations of these 3 fruits.
Notes
- The COMBINA function handles non-negative integers, so both `number` and `number_chosen` should be 0 or greater.
- If either `number` or `number_chosen` is a decimal, Excel will truncate it to an integer.
- This function is available in Excel 2013 and later versions.
If you encounter any errors or unexpected results, ensure the arguments provided are correctly specified and consistent with the above constraints.
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