Hi, Coach

Try this:

Format the race times as:
Category: Custom
Type: 00":"00

That will make 1216 appear as 12:16, but it won't actually be a time.

Then follow the rest of my previous instructions

Does that help?
***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP


"Coach" wrote:

Ron,
I tried this and I think I need to break this into 2 different areas. The
times that I enter do need to print like mm:ss. Right now they are formatted
as h:mm:ss so that it prints right visually but it is still not actually
mm:ss.

I tried the formula you sent but it ended up with 00:00, probably because of
the formatting of the race times. I was not able to custome format to what
you specified as I did not have that option. I had mm:ss and mm:ss.0

I think you know what I am trying to do, can you suggest how I would enter
race times (that prints mm:ss) and still calculate a improvement formula as
well. The format of the race times is the issue I am guessing.

Thanks for the very fast response, this has been an issue for years now.
Coach
"Ron Coderre" wrote:

Minor correcton...I was playing with different race times and posted the
wrong differece between the example times of 1216 amd 1214. The difference,
of course, would be 2 seconds (not 1).

***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP


"Ron Coderre" wrote:

Try something like this:

For
A1: (RaceTime_1 eg: 1216...meaning 12:16)
B1: (RaceTime_2 eg: 121...meaning 12:14)

Improvement
C1:
=IF(B1A1,0,("00:"&INT(A1/100)&":"&RIGHT(A1,2))-("00:"&INT(B1/100)&":"&RIGHT(B1,2)))
Custom Format C1 as Time (mm:ss;@)

In the above example, C1 displays 00:01 (improvement of 1 second)

Is that something you can work with?
***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP


"Coach" wrote:

Spreadsheet tracks race times for cross country races and needs to be able to
calculate improvement time in mm:ss (or zero if less than previous race).

Also,it would be nice to be able to enter times without using colons or have
to reference the field as h:mm:ss. The race result will always be mm:ss and
the last two digits will always be seconds, the result will never be more
than 60 minutes so hours are a real bother.

A1 (8:52, m:ss) - A2 (8:40, mm:ss) should = 0.12 (12 seconds)

Presently I am using the following: =TEXT(A2-A1,"h:mm:ss"), I only want to
display m:ss, hours are meanlingless