Incrementing June 12, 2008 13:00:02 PM

**Heyjj** · 06-13-2008, 04:08 PM

Although I've used Excel for several years the use has been infrequent and simplistic so I think I probably still qualify as someone new to Excel. I've been using Google to study examples and experimenting with any number of approaches to resolving my problem involving formulas, concantating (sp) columns, etc. for about three hours now. It seems pretty obvious that I'm not going to solve this date incrementing problem on my own.

I have this: June 12, 2008 13:00:00 PM as my starting point.

I would like to have subsequent cells in a column increment the minutes by 1 so that I then have:
June 12, 2008 13:01:00 PM
June 12, 2008 13:02:00 PM
June 12, 2008 13:03:00 PM

I'll be using this many times in the future and would love to find a formula where I can enter the start time in row one and have it increase by 1 minute down the spread sheet column.

As with anyone lost in Excel 2003 your help will be greatly appreciated. I already need a pain pill for my Excel headache.
Jim

**dominicb** · 06-13-2008, 04:20 PM

Good evening Heyjj

...and welcome to the forum!!

You can't do exactly what you want without introducing helper cells, so I'll show the easiest (and what I think neatest) way. You can't have the date shown as an ordinal number (1s, 2nd, 3rd etc) as Excel doesn't support it. But you could show your dates / times like this :
12 June 2008 01:01:00 PM
12 June 2008 01:02:00 PM
12 June 2008 01:03:00 PM
12 June 2008 01:04:00 PM
12 June 2008 01:05:00 PM
12 June 2008 01:06:00 PM
12 June 2008 01:07:00 PM
12 June 2008 01:08:00 PM
12 June 2008 01:09:00 PM
12 June 2008 01:10:00 PM
12 June 2008 01:11:00 PM
BTW, you can't have 13:00 PM

You can have 13:00, or 01:00PM

In cell A1 type :
12/06/2008 13:01:00
and in cell A2 type :
12/06/2008 13:02:00

Highlight bothe rows and press Ctrl +1, and enter this as a custom format :
dd mmmm yyyy hh:mm:ss AM/PM

Now with the two cells still highlighted, go to the bottom right hand corner of the range move the mouse till it turns into a thin cross.

Now left click and drag down as far as you need.

HTH

DominicB

**Heyjj** · 06-13-2008, 04:38 PM

I didn't realize how messed up I am until I read your reply! LOL 13:00 PM?

It's not even the correct format.

I'm working with June 12, 2008 01:00:00 PM

Long story short - this is 4 minutes after 1PM, right? 6/12/2008 1:04:00 PM.

It's displaying differently in the cell but when I click in the cell it's what I actually see.

So, thanks you I believe I have it. Much appreciated.

**Heyjj** · 06-13-2008, 05:39 PM

Hey, that really was special information.
Since I was seeing what I needed in the formula bar I thought that when I saved everything as a csv file that it would save the information I needed. Didn't work and I also couldn't find the format you indicated being already listed.

Then I realized what you were really saying and, son of a gun, it's possible to type in my own custom format. I never knew that before. If I had know that hours ago I would have been home free and saved myself alot of aggravation. I had the solution early on but could not get it to format properly.

You've made my day.