How to enter 30 minutes as 30:00

[Joel]

I have looked at all of the help information and cannot
figure it out. I want 30 minutes presented as 30:00. I
go in to create my own format [mm]:ss and it comes up as
00:00. Is there a special function I need to use to
display minutes and seconds as I wish?

Thanks.

 

[Jason Morse]

Try dividing your number of minutes by (24*60), which is the number of
minutes in a day. Excel sees your number 30 as 30 days when you set the
cell to a time format, so that's why it shows up as 00:00.

e.g. "=30/(24*60)" formatted as mm:ss appears as "30:00"

-Jason

 

[Bernard Rey]

Joel wrote :

I have looked at all of the help information and cannot
figure it out. I want 30 minutes presented as 30:00. I
go in to create my own format [mm]:ss and it comes up as
00:00. Is there a special function I need to use to
display minutes and seconds as I wish?

The formatting is right. Just enter "0:30" and it'll be OK and display
"30:00" (or "0:30:20" and it'll display "30:20", etc).

You can't "skip" the hours when entering time. Or else you have to type it
as a fraction of a day, as indicated by Jason.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I have looked at all of the help information and cannot
figure it out. I want 30 minutes presented as 30:00. I
go in to create my own format [mm]:ss and it comes up as
00:00. Is there a special function I need to use to
display minutes and seconds as I wish?

XL by default assumes hours, as you've found. One way to force it to
interpret the value as minutes is to force it to interpret fractional
seconds:

30:0.0

which works well if you're entering seconds already. Alternatively, if
you are only entering minutes, entering zero hours will save a few
keystrokes:

0:30