# I :slash: ❤ Excel... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 13, 2002, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slash-heart-excel/128193 "2002-09-13T00:52:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slash-heart-excel/128193/1 "2002-09-13T00:52:21Z")
…but I still gotta use it. For some reason, the IT people at work don’t think we need anything more substatial than a spreadsheet app to do our database/scripting work. Assholes. Anyway, can sombody tell me what the hell is wrong with this function? =(TIMEVALUE(C3) - TIMEVALUE(B3) + TIMEVALUE(E3) - TIMEVALUE(D3) + … TIMEVALUE(U3) - TIMEVALUE(T3)) or hell, just =TIMEVALUE(A1) When I enter individual cell keys in the function wizard, it works just fine, but when I actually enter the function into a cell, all I get is #VALUE!. I’ve tried it with quotes, without quotes, and every other f’in way I can think of. What gives? And for the record, Excel just crashed. Before I saved the exquisitely formatted 966-cell table that I need this function for. [Marvelous](http://rita.thegourmet.com/tywych07.gif). Grrr… ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slash-heart-excel/128193/2 "2002-09-13T01:25:18Z")
TIMEVALUE requires a text argument. e.g. if B3 contains =“7:17:00 PM” it will work. If it contains 7:17:00 PM it won’t (because excel will treat as a serial date) ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slash-heart-excel/128193/3 "2002-09-13T01:37:02Z")
btw, what are you trying to do? ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slash-heart-excel/128193/4 "2002-09-13T02:37:36Z")
Somebody volunteered me to write a weekly stat sheet for the some workers at my job. They need to account for every minute of their time, so I’ve got something that looks like: ```auto From To From To .... Total. Shelving 8:00 8:45 10:30 12:15 Barcoding 8:45 9:20 Sorting 9:35 10:30 ``` That probably won’t come out right, but you get the drift. They enter the times they were doing each job, and I get the total number of hours they spent doing each job for a day. I’m using TIMEVALUE in the daily total column. I then take that daily time count and do various things with it, which is the easy part. [geek]This would be a helluva lot easier with a Unix timestamp.[/geek] I’ll give your suggestion a shot. I’ve only got OpenOffice Calc at home, so it’ll have to wait until Saturday when I go in next. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slash-heart-excel/128193/5 "2002-09-13T04:20:03Z")
:smack: =(b1-a1+d1-c1)\*24 :smack: ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slash-heart-excel/128193/6 "2002-09-13T04:37:56Z")
I think you’ve got it! Yes - Excel stores dates and times as date serial numbers: these are days since Jan 1, 1900. Times are fractional parts of days, e.g. .5 = noon. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slash-heart-excel/128193/7 "2002-09-13T04:42:13Z")
I used to use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of work hours. The columns in which the start and finish times and hours worked were formatted with the Custom format **hh:mm )**. The work time in hours and minutes e.g 7:50 was derived just by =a1 - b1. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2002, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slash-heart-excel/128193/8 "2002-09-13T06:51:08Z")
If it didn’t work I have another suggestion. I remember having a hell of a time trying to figure out a similar situation. No matter what I did I kept getting something strange like what your getting. Turned out to be the stupidest thing. THE COLUMN WASN’T WIDE ENOUGH. It had to display something like $1234.34 and was only wide enough for part of the number and I ended up getting “####” Took me FOREVER to figure that out.