PERMUTATIONA in Collabora Office: Count Ordered Choices With Repetition

=PERMUTATIONA(Count1; Count2)

Count1 is the number of options for a position. Count2 is the number of positions. Both arguments are required. The Collabora reference explicitly permits repetition and provides 6-option/3-position and 11-option/2-position examples.

For ordinary nonnegative whole-number counts, the independent model is n^k. Every position has the same n choices because previous choices remain available. This assumes the choices at different positions have no restrictions that reduce the later options.

The function accepts counts, not a list of allowable characters or objects. Duplicate labels in a source list must be resolved before you determine the number of distinct choices. Four cells containing A, A, B and C represent three distinct labels if labels define the outcomes.

Suppose an identifier has three positions, and each can contain one of A, B, C, D, E, F. Put 6 in A2 and 3 in B2, then enter =PERMUTATIONA(A2;B2) in C2. The expected result is 216, from 6×6×6.

AAA and AAB are valid because repetition is allowed. ABC and BAC are different because positions matter. A count of unordered groups would answer a different question.

This is a count of a designed code space, not a recommendation for authentication credentials. Real security depends on randomness, attack limits and other controls beyond the number of possible strings.

For the same six symbols and three positions:

The difference comes from the problem definition. Changing a function name to produce a smaller answer does not constitute validating the intended rule.

If the first position has six choices but each later position may use any symbol except the immediately preceding one, the count for three positions is 6×5×5 = 150.

=6*PERMUTATIONA(5;2) produces that independent target. It permits ABA because the third symbol differs from B, even though A appeared earlier. A rule forbidding all repeated symbols would instead give 120.

For a five-position identifier under the immediate-repeat rule, =6*PERMUTATIONA(5;4) gives 3750. Document the first-position exception beside the formula so an editor does not replace it with 5^5 or 6^5.

Suppose the first position can contain one of four letters and the next three can each contain one of ten digits. The count is =4*PERMUTATIONA(10;3), expected 4000. The first position has a different choice set, so a single PERMUTATIONA call with 14 options in every position would be wrong.

If leading zero is disallowed in an otherwise four-digit identifier, the first digit has nine choices and the remaining three each have ten. =9*PERMUTATIONA(10;3) gives 9000. The restriction is modeled explicitly outside the repeated-choice component.

Use whole, nonnegative counts. The reviewed help section does not specify fractional truncation, negative-input errors or every zero-input boundary, so this guide does not assert their native outcomes. Test those cases in the target deployment if they are relevant.

As a mathematical control, =PERMUTATIONA(11;2) corresponds to 11², or 121, and =PERMUTATIONA(6;1) corresponds to 6. The documented 11/2 example provides a useful small check after importing a workbook.

Very large powers may overflow or lose exact integer precision. Format changes cannot recover digits lost during calculation. Do not use scientific-notation display alone to decide that a count is exact.

If your total is unexpected, inspect three things: whether order matters, whether repetition is allowed, and whether all positions genuinely share the same allowable choices. Those modeling checks usually matter more than the cell format.

The function is documented in Collabora Office 26.04 desktop help. The cited source was retrieved on 2026-10-13; its saved bytes were hash-verified for this guide on October 15, 2026. Online and mobile support are not inferred.

The first introduced release and last functioning version are unknown. A documentation version is evidence of documented availability, not a native execution test. No Collabora or WPS application run was performed. Numerical outputs here are independently calculated expectations, with the official examples identified where used.

• Collabora Office 26.04: PERMUTATIONA.
• Editorial testing standards.

English function names and semicolon separators are used throughout. Exact native results, invalid-input error displays and other application versions remain unverified unless explicitly documented above.