Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 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: Entering the Current Time.

Entering the Current Time

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 22, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


1

Some people like to use Excel to keep track of the time that they work on different jobs. If you want a quick way to enter the current time, simply select a cell and press Ctrl+: (that's the colon). Obviously, to access the colon you need to hold down the Shift key, so some people might express this shortcut as Shift+Ctrl+:. The result is that Excel places the current system time in the selected cell. All you need to do is press Enter to accept the time.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9544) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Entering the Current Time.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Printing a Style Sheet

Styles are a fantastic way to format your documents easily and consistently. At some point you may want to print out a ...

Discover More

Putting Amounts in Month Columns

Sometimes putting together a formula can be a challenge. Part of the process, though, is examining the data with which ...

Discover More

Printing Summary Information

Word automatically maintains a number of properties for each document you create. As part of those properties you can ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Weird Pasting Behavior

The Clipboard is integral to editing data in your worksheets. What happens, though, when the Clipboard doesn't allow you ...

Discover More

AutoFilling Numbers with a Trailing Period

The AutoFill tool is very handy when it comes to quickly filling cells with a sequence of values. Sometimes, however, it ...

Discover More

Copying to Very Large Ranges

Using the mouse to select a large cell range can be frustratingly slow. If you want to make copying to a large range of ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 3 + 2?

2023-09-22 05:10:39

Mark Fitzgerald

The time returned has an underlying date of 0/01/1900 making it impossible to get meaningful math results when times have been entered over different days. Users would need an adjacent date cell or could enter the date in the same cell by pressing Ctrl+; Space Shift Ctrl+:


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.