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: Combining and Formatting Times.

Combining and Formatting Times

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 2, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


1

Brenda has an Excel worksheet with two columns: A and B. In column A are times without any indication of whether they are AM or PM. Instead, column B contains either AM or PM, as appropriate for the cell just to the indicator's left. Brenda would like to combine these two columns into one column and have the result formatted as military time. Thus, if A14 contains 05:11 and B14 contains PM, she would like the combined column to contain 17:11.

There are very easy ways you can get the desired results in a column, but the formula you choose depends on the way the times are stored in column A. If the times are actually time values, then the following formula in column C will work just fine:

=IF(B1="pm",A1+0.5,A1)

The formula works because it adds half a day (0.5, which is an Excel time value for twelve hours) to the time in column A if the indicator in column B is "pm". It will work whether the indicators in column B are lowercase ("pm") or uppercase ("PM"). It won't work, however, if you have any times in column A that are past noon, such as 12:15. In that case, you'll need to modify the formula a bit:

=IF(B1="pm",IF(A1<0.5,A1+0.5,A1),A1)

If the time stored in column A are actually stored as text, then you'll need to do a conversion, but it is extremely easy to do:

=VALUE(A1 & " " & B1)

Regardless of which formulaic approach you use, you'll need to format the cells containing the formulas so that they show times in military (24 hour) format. You can pick one of the pre-defined time formats (shown in the Number tab of the Format Cells dialog box) such as 13:30 or 13:30:55, depending on whether you want seconds displayed or not. You could also define a custom format such as HH:MM, H:MM, HH:MM:SS, or H:MM:SS.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (12041) 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: Combining and Formatting Times.

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

Turning Off Line Numbering

Need to have line numbering turned off for a paragraph or two? You can accomplish the task by following these steps.

Discover More

Storing Sorting Criteria

Need to do the same sorting operation over and over again? Excel doesn't provide a way to save your sorting criteria, but ...

Discover More

Adding Borders to Paragraphs

Word allows you to quickly and easily add different types of borders to your paragraphs. Borders, background shading, and ...

Discover More

Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2019 For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Converting Numeric Values to Times

If you have a bunch of times entered into cells without the colon between the hours and minutes, chances are good that ...

Discover More

Counting Times within a Range

Excel allows you to easily store dates and times in your worksheets. If you have a range of cells that contain times and ...

Discover More

Adjusting Times for Time Zones

Collect a series of times in a worksheet, and you might need to adjust those times for various time zones. This involves ...

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 8 + 2?

2021-10-02 23:35:20

henry

Sometimes it is just faster to sort the column, then manual copy paste simple formula.


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.