Chapter 13

Keeping Well-Timed Functions

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Handling time

Bullet Formatting time values

Bullet Working with hours, minutes, and seconds

Bullet Getting the current time

Bullet Calculating elapsed time

Excel has a handful of superb functions for working with times and performing calculations on time values. You can analyze data to the hour, minute, or second. And Excel helps you get this done in a New York minute!

Understanding How Excel Handles Time

In Chapter 12, I explain how Excel uses a serial number system to work with dates. Well, guess what? The same system is used to work with time. The key difference is that although dates are represented by the integer portion of a serial number, time is represented by the decimal portion.

What does this mean? Consider this: 43466. That is the serial number representation for January 1, 2019. Notice, though, that there is no indication of the time of day. The assumed time is 12 a.m. (midnight), the start of the day. You can, however, represent specific ...

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