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Default calculate average given minutes and seconds

I'm trying to calculate the average minutes and seconds for a given task. We
have 4 sets of minutes and seconds. I want the minutes and seconds to
display as mm:ss but when I select this as a format it seems to round off to
nearest minute. I want the resulting average to display as mm:ss also.

Can someone please tell me the correct format to use in Excel 2007 to get
mm:ss and also the formula to calculate the average.


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Thumbs up Answer: calculate average given minutes and seconds

To display minutes and seconds in the format mm:ss:
  1. Select the cells containing the minutes and seconds data.
  2. Right-click and select "Format Cells".
  3. In the "Number" tab, select "Custom" from the Category list.
  4. In the "Type" field, enter "mm:ss" and click "OK".

To calculate the average of the minutes and seconds data:
  1. Select the cell where you want to display the average.
  2. Type "
    Formula:
    =AVERAGE
    " and then select the cells containing the minutes and seconds data.
  3. Type "
    Formula:

    " and press Enter.

This will calculate the average of the minutes and seconds data and display it in the selected cell. To format the result as mm:ss, you can apply the custom number format as described above.
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Default calculate average given minutes and seconds

Assuming your times are in A1:A4, put this in A5:

=AVERAGE(A1:A4)

If the first 4 cells are formatted as [mm]:ss, I would expect A5 to
take the same format when you enter the formula, but if not then
choose Custom in the Format cells dialogue box and set it to [mm]:ss.

You should note that if your time is 4 minutes and 30 seconds, for
example, and you enter 4:30, then Excel will take this as meaning 4
hours and 30 minutes, even though it will display as 4:30. You need to
enter the data as 0:4:30 or as 4:30.0 - this might be what caused you
the problem.

Hope this helps.

Pete

On Jun 25, 12:05*am, Cathy T <Cathy
wrote:
I'm trying to calculate the average minutes and seconds for a given task. *We
have 4 sets of minutes and seconds. *I want the minutes and seconds to
display as mm:ss but when I select this as a format it seems to round off to
nearest minute. *I want the resulting average to display as mm:ss also. *

Can someone please tell me the correct format to use in Excel 2007 to get
mm:ss and also the formula to calculate the average.


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Default calculate average given minutes and seconds

Cathy,
It always helps to show what you did and what the result is.
This is what I did
In A1:A3 I entered some times (mins:sec)
0:02:23
0:04:45
0:06:45

0:04:38


In A5 I used =AVERAGE(A1:A3)
I can format everything with custom format mm:ss so as to not display hours

How does this differ from what you did?
best wishes
--
Bernard V Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVP
http://people.stfx.ca/bliengme
remove caps from email

"Cathy T" <Cathy wrote in message
...
I'm trying to calculate the average minutes and seconds for a given task.
We
have 4 sets of minutes and seconds. I want the minutes and seconds to
display as mm:ss but when I select this as a format it seems to round off
to
nearest minute. I want the resulting average to display as mm:ss also.

Can someone please tell me the correct format to use in Excel 2007 to get
mm:ss and also the formula to calculate the average.




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Default calculate average given minutes and seconds

Thanks for the replies. I guess while trying to be concise and not overload
with too much information I did not give enough. Sorry.

I was able to get it to work using the hours yesterday before I posted. I
am not that familiar with Excel 97 and when I tried to format using the mm:ss
(I also did not key a 0 as the hour when I used this format) I got the
rounding errors I described earlier. I will try keying the hours and using
the mm:ss format and see if that works.




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Default calculate average given minutes and seconds

THANKS! I used the spreadhseet where I had entered with the hours hh:mm:ss
and then just reformatted to the mm:ss and no more rounding error.

"Cathy T" wrote:

I'm trying to calculate the average minutes and seconds for a given task. We
have 4 sets of minutes and seconds. I want the minutes and seconds to
display as mm:ss but when I select this as a format it seems to round off to
nearest minute. I want the resulting average to display as mm:ss also.

Can someone please tell me the correct format to use in Excel 2007 to get
mm:ss and also the formula to calculate the average.


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