Calculate datetime fields

[Wilco()]

I have in cell A1:
2016-09-01 00:06:05
Excel date serial (formatted as general)= 42614,004224537

I have in cell B1
2016-09-03 16:37:07
Excel date serial (formatted as general)= 42616,6924421296

A1 is the start time
B1 is the end time

I like to have the difference in minutes. Basically B1-A1

I have been tinkering with this. When I just perform B1-A1 I get the difference in time: 16:31 (formatted as time). The date difference seems neglected.

How to do this?

 

[Marc L]

Just use cell hours format between brackets ! Like [hh]:mm …
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[NARAYANK991]

Hi ,

To add to what Marc has posted , a cell format of [mm] will display 3871 , which is the integer number of minutes.

Narayan

 

[Wilco()]

Thanks, the [] around hh worked.

What exactly does the [] do?

 

[NARAYANK991]

Hi ,

The brackets allow spillover to be reflected in the displayed value.

For hours , the maximum possible in a day is 23 ; 24 hours is basically 1 day and 0 hours ; 37 hours is 1 day and 13 hours.

Thus , if the underlying value is 37 hours , if the cell format is hh , Excel will display 13 ; if the cell format is [hh] , Excel will display 37.

The same is the case with minutes , for which the maximum possible is 59.

If you need to display a value of minutes which is greater than 59 , you need to use a format [mm].

Narayan