COMBIN in WPS Spreadsheet: Unordered Selections and Combination Counts

• Introduced: documented by 2019-06-17 in the official WPS lesson; original introduction is not established.
• Availability: WPS Office for Windows Personal; no numeric release is stated in the edition metadata.
• Scope: exact current supported builds remain unverified. The Windows lesson does not establish equivalent availability in other WPS clients.
• Checked: October 14, 2026 against function-specific documentation. Examples were independently calculated; no native WPS test was performed.

=COMBIN(number,number_chosen)

The first argument is the total number of distinct objects; the second is how many enter each group. Both are required. The source documents truncation of noninteger arguments and requires nonnegative values with the selected count no greater than the total.

Examples use English names, comma separators and numeric cells. Their outputs are independently calculated expectations, not native WPS observations.

Choose two letters from A, B, C and D:

=COMBIN(4,2)

Expected result: 6. The groups are AB, AC, AD, BC, BD and CD. BA is the same group as AB, and AA is disallowed because each object is selected only once.

If the two positions represent different roles, AB and BA would be different assignments. That is an ordered problem, not the unordered problem represented by COMBIN.

=COMBIN(6,4)
=COMBIN(6,2)

Both expected results are 15. Choosing the four students who participate is equivalent to choosing the two who stay out. This symmetry is useful when checking that you have interpreted the arguments correctly.

For ten students and a three-person team, =COMBIN(10,3) gives 120. The count assumes every three-person subset is allowed. Restrictions such as required skills or prohibited pairings need to be included separately.

A five-person team must contain two people from a pool of five and three from a separate pool of seven:

=COMBIN(5,2)*COMBIN(7,3)

Expected result: 350, from 10×35. Each valid first-pool pair can accompany each valid second-pool triple. The pools must be disjoint, and every cross-pool combination must be allowed for this product model.

Choosing any five people from all twelve would instead give =COMBIN(12,5), or 792, because that larger count includes different pool compositions. A correct formula for a different question can still give a plausible number.

Among ten candidates, three are specialists and seven are not. Count three-person teams containing at least one specialist:

=COMBIN(10,3)-COMBIN(7,3)

Expected result: 85, from 120−35. Start with every three-person team, then subtract the teams drawn entirely from nonspecialists.

An independent decomposition gives the same answer: exactly one specialist contributes 3*COMBIN(7,2)=63; exactly two contribute COMBIN(3,2)*7=21; all three contribute 1. These mutually exclusive cases total 85. Do not sum overlapping cases without correcting their overlap.

=FACT(8)/(FACT(3)*FACT(5))
=COMBIN(8,3)

Expected results are 56 and 56. By comparison, filling three distinct roles from eight people gives 8*7*6=336, six times as many. Each selected triple has 3!=6 role orders.

This is a modest-size mathematical cross-check using FACT, not a recommendation to expand every large combination into factorials. Intermediate numbers can become large even when the final ratio is smaller.

=COMBIN(6.9,4.2) has expected result 15, using the documented integer truncation to 6 and 4. This can hide an invalid fractional count, so validate whole-count requirements separately.

The source documents #NUM! when the total or selected count is negative, or the selected count exceeds the total. It documents #VALUE! for nonnumeric arguments. Exact error precedence, blank/text coercion and large-number limits have not been natively tested here. The worked selection models use positive integral counts and avoid relying on those unresolved conversions.

• WPS Academy: COMBIN lesson, 2019-06-17 (Chinese; Windows Personal scope).
• Editorial testing standards.

The direct WPS product lesson supports the stated function scope. Worked outputs are independent expectations, not captured native results or proof of support across all current WPS clients.