The elapsed time is displayed differently depending on the time format applied to the column: With Start times residing in column A and End times in column B, you can copy the following formula in columns C though E: Please see Creating a custom time format in Excel for the detailed steps.Īnd now, let's see how our time difference formula and time codes work in real worksheets.

To apply the custom time format, click Ctrl + 1 to open the Format Cells dialog, select Custom from the Category list and type the time codes in the Type box. To make them more informative, you can apply custom time formatting with one of the following codes: Time codeĮlapsed hours and minutes, display as 4:10.Įlapsed hours, minutes and seconds, display as 4:10:20. The decimals in column D are perfectly true but not very meaningful.

Remembering that in the internal Excel system, times are represented by fractional parts of decimal numbers, you are likely to get the results similar to this: =TIME(HOUR(A2), MINUTE(A2), SECOND(A2)) - TIME(HOUR(B2), MINUTE(B2), SECOND(B2))Ĭalculates the time difference between values in cells A2 and B2 ignoring the date difference, when the cells contain both the date and time values.

=TIMEVALUE('8:30 PM') - TIMEVALUE('6:40 AM')Ĭalculates the difference between the specified times. Depending on you data structure, the actual time difference formula may take various shapes, for example: FormulaĬalculates the difference between the time values in cells A2 and B2.

Convert clock time to decimal in excel