Need help...trying to add my work hours together in excel

[aresci00]

I have two columns "time in" and "time out"...ex. 9am (in) 5 pm (out)....I
want to add my total number of work hours for that day, but i cannot figure
out the formula. I keep getting a total of 14, when the total work hours for
that day is 8. please show me how to do this. i know it has to be simple.
thanks
the time in starts in column c and the time out starts in column d

 

[daniel]

column d minus column c

 

[Bernard Liengme]

If A1 holds 9:00AM and B1 hold 5:00 PM then the number of hours worked is
found with
=(B1-A1). But this will display as 8:00 Am since Excel helpfully uses the
format from the other cells. Just use Format | Cell and format as hh:mm.

But wait! What about the 'back shift' that starts at 7:00 PM and ends at
4:00 AM? The formula above will compute to a negative value which Excel will
hate causing it to display ########, So we will aways use =(B1-A1)+(A1>B1)
which adds 1 ( ie 24 hours) when we cross thru midnight.

Now if you want to compute $ earned we need to incorporate the factor of 24.
Why the 24? Because Excel STORES time as a fraction of a day and DISPLAYS it
in hrs:min:sec. So if you are earning $25.50 an hour use =
(=(B1-A1)+(A1>B1))*24*25.50

best wishes