don’t ask
My problem with cells unexpectedly changing formats? If I have formatted every cell but my total results in zero, my ape’s brain concludes there is something wrong with my procedure and it is time to try something else. I don’t immediately conclude “hmmm the total shouldn’t be zero. I’ll bet the cell changed its format.” Of course now that I have encountered this particular weirdness, I should open my mind even further to the surprises that can be encountered in the “Adventureland” that is Microsoft. Okay so much for the rant.
It seems that you have come up with a valid solution too. (That makes #3 for those keeping score). AND I like the fact that it eliminates the “shift colon” keystroke. Some people might think the formula looks a bit intimidating, but the Excel cognoscenti know you can do copy it right from this page and paste it to your Excel spreadsheet.
Well, all I can say is wow, and thanks guys (gals?)!
I will be trying with all three solutions later this evening, and we’ll see what works the best, and the easiest for my math-challenged artist brain.
Like I mentioned above, my ultimate goal with this spreadsheet is to have a master list of the songs I’m currently performing with all the pertinent info about the song.
Then I hope to, on another sheet inside the workbook, copy and paste songs into various set lists, so that I can play around with the dynamics of the set (tempo, mood, key of each piece) and still see at a glance with overall set time.
Because I currently perform either 45, 60 or 75 minute sets, I need to be able construct strong set lists in each of those formats, and it’s a real pain in the ass to have to do all that math in your head and still focus on the performance/dynamic side of things.
Thanks again, and I’ll chime in again when I’ve got it working.
Correct, although with a clean out-of-the-box spreadsheet with no formatting, it will interpret 0:2:45 as hh:mm:ss with no further work. That’s why I suggested it. True, there are a few extra keystrokes on data entry but you don’t have to know sh*t about Excel formatting or do arithmetic to get it to work.