number formatting

[Theresa]

Hi,

I need to enter times in a column (Excel 2003). For example, "00:40" -
meaning 40 secs. I've formatted the column as mm:ss, however when I enter
00:40, it converts the value to 40:00 in the cell, and reads 12:40 AM in the
status bar.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
Theresa

 

[John C]

Even though you format the cells as mm:ss, when you actually enter the data,
you would need to enter it in hours:minutes:seconds, so, when entering data,
you would enter:
00:00:40, then it will display correctly.

 

[Theresa]

I guess Excel will always read it as time of day though, right? What I'm
really after is elapsed time, so I don't want it referenced from midnight or
whatever. Maybe I should just enter it as 40 (secs), so format the column as
general number, not time. Besides, entering 40 secs as 00:00:40 is a whole
lot of key strokes, which is really time consuming when entering a ton of
data! Oh well.

Thanks for your thoughts!
Theresa

 

[John C]

You could take a look at Chip Pearson's site. It may help you accomplish
what you want it too.
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/DateTimeEntry.htm