Formulas : How to add up minutes and hours

[rbjexcpa]

Not needing a full out timecard type spreadsheet. Just need to add up all minutes and hours and return a total in hours. I.e. if in two columns the first column lists projects by type and the second lists duration of the project. What mechanism will allow easy entry of the duration times (.25, .50, .75) or (15, 30, 45) and a way to add up all of the minutes and return the total in hours.

Thanks,

Rod

[thomach]

Either format will work, as long as you stay consitent.

The decimal format (e.g., 2.5 or 1.25) obviously will add just like normal numbers.

You also can use normal hh:mm format (e.g., 6:30 or 8:15) and sum them with the normal SUM formula. The trick is to use CUSTOM FORMATTING for the cell with the sum.

FORMAT > CELLS > CUSTOM > and set the format to:
[hh]:mm

This will allow hours to sum to more than 24.

[Dave Hawley]

Hi rbjexcpa

It would save you a lot of grief later if you enter them as true minutes. Eg 0:15, 0:30, 0:45 then use the SUM function inside (as thomach suggests) as cell formatted as [h]:mm

If you stast using decimal times etc Excel will not regonize them as True times and you will need to convert them to true times, eg =A1/24

See this link for details on dates and times in Excel:
http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/ExcelDateandTimes.htm