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I want to format some text to put each character in its own bordered box, making the characters look kind of like individual Scrabble tiles (without the letter values). Is there an easy way to do this in HTML+CSS, LaTeX, or Word? (What I'm trying to do is to use the formatting to distinguish sentences in an object language from text in the meta-language, and to visually emphasize that the sentences in the object language are strings of symbols.) Thanks. -- 96.227.60.16 ( talk) 13:33, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Does anyone know how to format minutes and seconds in Excel 2013? For example, let's say that I have two cells. In the each cell, I want to enter the value for one-and-a-half minutes. So, in each cell, I want to type in 1:30 (for 1 minute and 30 seconds). (I don't want to type in 1.5 for the value.) I want the value in each cell to display as "1:30" (without the quotation marks). If I add the two cells together, I want to get a result that reads "3:00" (representing the total time of 3 minutes and 0 seconds). This seems like it should be easy to do, but I cannot seem to do it. In its drop-down menu, Excel even has a "number formatting" option called "mm:ss" (for minutes and seconds). But, when I use that, it seems to think that my values are dates. For example, if I enter "1:30", it seems to think that that means "January 1, 1900, 1:30 in the AM" (or some such). Then, of course, the addition results are incorrect. Any help? Ultimately, what I am trying to do is this: I have a long column of time durations, listed as "mm:ss" format, and I want to add them up to calculate the total time. So, for a very easy example, I might have six rows in the column: 0:10 and 0:10 and 0:10 and 0:10 and 0:10 and 0:10. And I want the computer (Excel) to add these up and tell me that the total time duration is "1:00" minutes. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 16:16, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Wow, this is far more complicated than I had anticipated. I thought that this would be a pretty simple, basic, and straight-forward Excel function. Hard to believe that it's not. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 01:34, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, all. I finally got it to work (I think). I entered all the times in hh:mm:ss format. So, for 1 minute and 30 seconds, I enter it as "0:1:30". That is how you have to enter it. Then, with the "Custom" options (under "Number"), I can have it display as either "0:1:30" (with the zero hours) or as "1:30" (without the zero hours). And this all seems to work. And the mathematical calculations of addition, sum, total, etc., all seem to work. There are two "odd" things that I did notice, however. (1) I had to format the cells before I entered the data, for some odd reason. So, I had to select the "Custom" format of "mm:ss" on a range of empty/blank cells. And, then, I had to subsequently go into those blank cells and enter my data (as h:mm:ss). When I did it in this order, it seemed to work fine. And (2): I don't know whether or not this is important. It does not seem to affect the output display or the math calculations. But, for whatever odd reason, Excel is still interpreting all of these data as actual dates, not time durations. So, when I enter "0:1:30", it will display as "1:30". But, when I go and look at the "formula bar" (I think that's what it's called), to see what value is in that cell, Excel has "January 1, 1900, 1:30 AM" or something like that. Which is odd. But, it doesn't seem to affect the output display or the calculations, from what I can see. I guess (?) that internally, when Excel sees a data entry of "0:1:30", Excel interprets that as "1:30 AM on January 1, 1900". Anyways, thanks. It works for me and it does what I needed it to do. Namely, add up a bunch of individual time durations to give me the total time duration. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 16:48, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 19:12, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Computing desk | ||
---|---|---|
< January 16 | << Dec | January | Feb >> | January 18 > |
Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives |
---|
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
I want to format some text to put each character in its own bordered box, making the characters look kind of like individual Scrabble tiles (without the letter values). Is there an easy way to do this in HTML+CSS, LaTeX, or Word? (What I'm trying to do is to use the formatting to distinguish sentences in an object language from text in the meta-language, and to visually emphasize that the sentences in the object language are strings of symbols.) Thanks. -- 96.227.60.16 ( talk) 13:33, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Does anyone know how to format minutes and seconds in Excel 2013? For example, let's say that I have two cells. In the each cell, I want to enter the value for one-and-a-half minutes. So, in each cell, I want to type in 1:30 (for 1 minute and 30 seconds). (I don't want to type in 1.5 for the value.) I want the value in each cell to display as "1:30" (without the quotation marks). If I add the two cells together, I want to get a result that reads "3:00" (representing the total time of 3 minutes and 0 seconds). This seems like it should be easy to do, but I cannot seem to do it. In its drop-down menu, Excel even has a "number formatting" option called "mm:ss" (for minutes and seconds). But, when I use that, it seems to think that my values are dates. For example, if I enter "1:30", it seems to think that that means "January 1, 1900, 1:30 in the AM" (or some such). Then, of course, the addition results are incorrect. Any help? Ultimately, what I am trying to do is this: I have a long column of time durations, listed as "mm:ss" format, and I want to add them up to calculate the total time. So, for a very easy example, I might have six rows in the column: 0:10 and 0:10 and 0:10 and 0:10 and 0:10 and 0:10. And I want the computer (Excel) to add these up and tell me that the total time duration is "1:00" minutes. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 16:16, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Wow, this is far more complicated than I had anticipated. I thought that this would be a pretty simple, basic, and straight-forward Excel function. Hard to believe that it's not. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 01:34, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, all. I finally got it to work (I think). I entered all the times in hh:mm:ss format. So, for 1 minute and 30 seconds, I enter it as "0:1:30". That is how you have to enter it. Then, with the "Custom" options (under "Number"), I can have it display as either "0:1:30" (with the zero hours) or as "1:30" (without the zero hours). And this all seems to work. And the mathematical calculations of addition, sum, total, etc., all seem to work. There are two "odd" things that I did notice, however. (1) I had to format the cells before I entered the data, for some odd reason. So, I had to select the "Custom" format of "mm:ss" on a range of empty/blank cells. And, then, I had to subsequently go into those blank cells and enter my data (as h:mm:ss). When I did it in this order, it seemed to work fine. And (2): I don't know whether or not this is important. It does not seem to affect the output display or the math calculations. But, for whatever odd reason, Excel is still interpreting all of these data as actual dates, not time durations. So, when I enter "0:1:30", it will display as "1:30". But, when I go and look at the "formula bar" (I think that's what it's called), to see what value is in that cell, Excel has "January 1, 1900, 1:30 AM" or something like that. Which is odd. But, it doesn't seem to affect the output display or the calculations, from what I can see. I guess (?) that internally, when Excel sees a data entry of "0:1:30", Excel interprets that as "1:30 AM on January 1, 1900". Anyways, thanks. It works for me and it does what I needed it to do. Namely, add up a bunch of individual time durations to give me the total time duration. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 16:48, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 19:12, 20 January 2015 (UTC)