You need to enter as 0:12:22 or as 12:22.0
Otherwise Excel will interpret your data as hh:mm, not mm:ss.

You may see something different in the formula bar, as that won't take
notice of your cell formatting, but for your cell formatting you may want
mm:ss, or [m]:ss if you prefer to see 83:45 rather than 1:23:45.
--
David Biddulph

"DavARei" wrote in message
...
I have what should be a simple issue.
I'm trying to enter race times as mm:ss and the entry keeps changing to a
date format.
so, if I enter 12:22, Excel changes it to [12:22:00 PM].
However, if I enter 36:22, Excel will change it to [1/1/1900 12:22 PM]

I've tried setting cell format to Custom and selecting the mm:ss option,
I've also tried the h:mm:ss and a few others.
Still no joy, Excel just doesn't want to cooporate.
PLEASE HELP....