No, the full stop is what you need (assuming you use that as a decimal
separator). When I use Data/Text to Columns on your example string, and
format the appropriate cell as hh:mm:ss.000 it works perfectly:

16:22:17.918

Using a colon will absolutely make XL treat the string as Text.

In article ,
Jon Stickings wrote:

Below is a copy of one of the lines from the log. This is one string which
I paste in, then chop up using the 'Text to Columns' feature. This allows me
to remove unwanted data and also (if it worked) perform the comparison. I
think that the main issue is that the milliseconds are recorded in the log
file as .000 as opposed to :000. I think that the full stop instead of a
colon is the stumbling block.

"21/09/2006 16:22:17.918 W2118R02 ftgt156 Minton.exe
0x00000d98 0x0d9c L CMinton::OnCardRemoved() - Started."