time format

[Pam]

Post reply,(original question below):
the format where my times (col a & B) are in custom format
and when I try to change this is gives me 0's. I wnet into
custom and did ##":"## to put colons in the column. This
spreadsheet was sent to me and I cannot get time formats
to work.

Frank wrote: this should work. maybe your time values are
not really times but text or other values.
Frank

If I have a spreadsheet where I am doing a calculation to
give me how long it took to do a problem,

example
col(a) col(b)
start finish
16:42 17:40

I do a formula in col c: =b1-a1 and I get an answer of
98. What am I doing wrong? I want it to give my answer

in hours and minutes or just minutes. If I go in a choose
the time format or custom with H:M chosen I get all 0's.

Please help!

..

 

[Frank Kabel]

Hi Pam
so you're not using times but custom formated numbers. Try applying a
time format for the cells first (e.g. hh:mm) after this your
calculation will work.
If you still have trouble mail me your sheet and I'll setup an example

Frank