Excel maintains time as fractions of 24 hours. 12 midnight is 0.0 1 hour is
1/24, 1 minute is 1(24*60), 1 second is 1(24*60*60)
So 3 minutes and 55 seconds is 1/(24*60) * 3 + 1(24*60*60) * 55, i.e.
0.00271990740740741.
If you display that as time formatted as mm:ss you will see: 03:55 If you
format that as h:mm:ss AM/PM you will see 12:03:55 AM
The formatting of the number is for human consumption. The time is still the
same. Your 3 minutes and 55 seconds is still 0.00271990740740741
I suggest you read some information on how Excel stores time.

Tyro



"GTifeld" wrote in message
...
Hi Pete,

Thank you for your response, but perhaps I didn't phrase my question
clearly
enough. I'm not looking to enter times as in the time of day. I'm looking
to
enter time FRAMES or lengths.

For instance, if I enter 3:55, I want it to refer to the length of time as
having lasted for 3 minutes and 55 seconds. I don't want it to refer to
3:55
a.m.

Just for laughs, I tried entering the leading zero anyway and it still
tranlated it to the time of day. Before I posted, I tried formatting the
cell
under "Custom", then chose "mm:ss", but it still turned it into a clock
time
(12:03:55 a.m.).

I hope that makes more sense. If you or anyone can tell me how to do this,
I'd appreciate it. As I said before, I can't do it as straight text since
I'll need to do more calculations off those numbers later. Thanks.

--- Gary

"Pete_UK" wrote:

You will need to enter the leading zero for the hour, i.e.:

0:3:55

and then Excel will treat it as 3 minutes and 55 seconds and will
display it as 3:55 if you apply a custom format to the cell of [m]:ss.
The square brackets will cause it to display 1:05:55 (for example) as
65:55, i.e. 65 minutes and 55 seconds.

Hope this helps.

Pete

On Mar 25, 7:14 pm, GTifeld wrote:
Hi,

I'm trying to enter numbers as running times. For example, when I enter
3:55, I want it recognized as 3 min. & 55 secs.; Not 3:55 a.m. It
should be
simple, but I can't seem to find the right format function. Can anyone
tell
me what I'm missing? I don't want to enter it as straight text, because
I'll
need to use it later in time calcs.

Thanks in advance.