Time format to display 12000:00

**Magumba** · 07-12-2010, 03:16 PM

Hi,
This is my first post. I've been working with Excel for a long time and usually can figure out the answer to a problem with the HELP built into Excel but this time I'm hitting a road block. I'm using Excel 2003.
I'm working on a log book sheet to track daily flight time for a helicopter at work. The time is tracked in hours and minutes. The only format I can find on Format Cell>Tme that will allow a display greater then 23:59 is one listed as 37:30:55. I've been using that format on the programs I've done in the past even though I don't really want to display seconds. Now I'm running into a limitation of the 37:30:55 format when displaying time for a heliocpter with more then 11000 hours on the airframe. If I enter 11000:00:00 in the cell the cell reads 11000:00 but when adding time to that number the SUM cell does not show the proper addition.

Is there a format that will allow the display 11000 hours as HHHHHH:MM also is there a format that will allow me to display only hours and minutes with out the seconds?

Thanks for your help.

**daddylonglegs** · 07-12-2010, 03:26 PM

You can use a custom format of [h]:mm to exclude seconds (the square brackets indicate elapsed time, i.e. possibly over 24 hours).......but Excel doesn't allow you to enter a time value of 10000 hours or higher.....unless it's a calculated value, so as a workaround you can get a valid 11000:00 using some sort of calculation, e.g.

="6000:00"+"5000:00"

format as above

**oldchippy** · 07-12-2010, 04:07 PM

More info here to confirm DLL quote

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/214386

**Magumba** · 07-12-2010, 05:47 PM

Thank you for your quick replies. I'll have to work on how to work into the spreadsheet your idea of adding 5000 and 6000 to equal a total of 11000 hours.

I've looked in Format Cells>Custom and can't find [h]:mm as one of the possible formats. There is a [h]:mm:ss format however. Is there a way add the needed format?

Thanks again for your help.

**daddylonglegs** · 07-12-2010, 06:12 PM

You don't have to select the format from a list - you can type it in

Format > Number > Custom

then just type or paste the format you want into the "type" box, i.e.

[h]:mm

OK