# Excel Question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/710484>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 21, 2015, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/710484 "2015-01-21T15:04:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2015, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/710484/1 "2015-01-21T15:04:10Z")

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I have a sheet full of store hours in this format: 17:00 I need to convert them to this format: 1700

Changing the formatting of the cells doesn’t change the existing format.

Ideas?

Thanks much.

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**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/710484/2 "2015-01-21T15:05:18Z")

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> [@Laggard](#):
>
> I have a sheet full of store hours in this format: 17:00 I need to convert them to this format: 1700
> 
> Changing the formatting of the cells doesn’t change the existing format.
> 
> Ideas?
> 
> Thanks much.

Use Find And Replace to find all the colons and replace them with nothing.

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**Author:** ![mcgato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2015, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/710484/3 "2015-01-21T15:12:08Z")

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You can open up Format Cells for the cells you want changed.  
Select Custom Format among the choices.  
Enter **hmm** for the format.

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**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2015, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/710484/4 "2015-01-21T15:28:37Z")

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Doh! Got it to work. :)😛

Thanks!

Please kill this post.

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**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2015, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/710484/5 "2015-01-21T16:02:38Z")

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And because other people might have the same question and they might find this thread some time in the future…[what did you do](http://xkcd.com/979/)?

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**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2015, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/710484/6 "2015-01-21T19:46:26Z")

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> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> And because other people might have the same question and they might find this thread some time in the future…[what did you do](http://xkcd.com/979/)?

I did what mcgato suggested:

You can open up Format Cells for the cells you want changed.  
Select Custom Format among the choices.  
Enter hmm for the format.