Calculate time difference in Excel

Hello Excel Forum,

I am looking to find the difference between a beginning time and an ending time not using decimals, but using hours and minutes. I tried searching online but it has not translated to success. I am using a 24 hour clock, so PM and AM would not be involved in what is displayed in the cells.

I tried using the formula =TEXT(D2-E2,"hh:mm") but received an error message.

Please assist. I have also attached my excel spreadsheet for better understanding.

An example of what I was looking to achieve was:

Call Start time: 01:45

Call End time: 01:50

Elapsed time: 00:05 (hoping that a formula would calculate that the call was 5 minutes)

I would simply use this:

=E2-D2

That way, Excel sees this value as a number (dates and times are seen as numbers to Excel).

You shouldn't have to adjust any formatting to have the cell show as hh:mm

Continuing this thread and hopefully not breaking any forum rules as I think this will be relevant to the original poster.

How does this impact going across midnight?

For instance End time is 00:50 and start time is 23:56.

It should be 54 minutes however does not seem to work.

I realize the solution is probably to have date and time in the cell however this is not how the information is recorded. Is there anyway that excel can cater for this?

Thank you

Another way:

=E2-D2+(D2>E2)

or:

=MOD(E2-D2,1)

Thank you very much for the help!!

This forum is fantastic!