Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Formatting for Hundredths of Seconds.

Formatting for Hundredths of Seconds

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 31, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021

Paolo wants to record times in an Excel workbook, but he needs the times to be precise, including hundredths of a second. What he would like is a format such as 1.41.73, meaning 1 minute, 41 seconds, and 73 hundredths.

This type of formatting can be easily applied to a cell in the following manner:

  1. Select the cell or cells you want to format.
  2. Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
  3. Click the small icon at the lower-right corner of the Number group. Excel displays the Format Cells dialog box.
  4. Make sure the Number tab is selected.
  5. In the Category list, choose Custom. (See Figure 1.)

    6. Figure 1. The Number tab of the Format Cells dialog box.

  6. In the Type box, enter the following: [h]:mm:ss.00
  7. Click OK.

The format shows elapsed time, with hours, minutes, seconds, and hundredths of seconds. If you prefer, you can change what delimiters are used between each element of the time. For instance, if you want to use decimal points and drop off the hours, you can use the following format in step 6: mm.ss.00.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (7557) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Formatting for Hundredths of Seconds.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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