Format for elapsed time

[Mr. B in VT]

I have data from my 4th grade class lab on the amount of time to melt an ice
cube, i.e., elapsed time, but the only way Excel 2007 seems to interpret time
values (either in the Time or Custom categories for formatting data) are as
time of day, even mm/ss shows as such. How can I show 4 minutes and 35
seconds as just that, not 4:35 AM??

 

[Luke M]

Formatting controls what the cell displays, not what's in the formula bar.
Just use a format of:
h:mm

 

[Jim Thomlinson]

When entering time you need to enter in h:m:s. If you only enter x:x it will
be interpreted as h:m and not m:s. The format you are looking for would be
[m]:ss
which will change hours to minutes but you will still need to enter the
hours as 0.
So for 4:35 you would enter it as 0:4:35