Ok, so you have written a shiny new macro to solve all the problems. The macro, solveWorldProblemsAndMakeSomeCoffee() sits nicely in your personalmacros.xlam file somewhere in C drive. You have also installed the macro as an add-in so that it is always available.
But wait!!!
How do you run your sWPAMSC everyday in the morning?
(ok, wake up now!!!, that is short for solveWorldProblemsAndMakeSomeCoffee())
One way is to,
- Right click on sheet name
- Select View Code
- Navigate to the VBA Project corresponding to your personalmacros.xlam file
- Yawn!
- Open the module with sWPAMSC
- Run the macro
But, shouldn’t this be faster and smarter than that?
Well, it is. You can add your macro to Quick Access Toolbar so that you can run it with just a click (or by pressing a shortcut).
Here is how you can add macros to Quick Access Toolbar (Excel 2007 Version):
- First write your macro and save the workbook as an excel add-in.

- Now, install the add-in by going to Office Button > Excel Options > Add-ins
- Now, right click on QAT and select Customize

- Select Macros from “choose commands…” option.

- Now, select the macro you want to add to QAT and then press Add button

- This will add your macro to QAT with default icon. You can change the icon using Modify button.

- That is all.
Here is how you can add macros to toolbars in Excel 2003:
- First write your macro and save the workbook as an excel add-in.
- Go to Tools > Customize
- Now, click on New button to create a new toolbar.

- Give it a name. Now your new toolbar will show up in Excel 2003 UI.
- Go to Commands tab and select Macros from left. Now drag the smiley icon from right to your new empty toolbar.

- You have added a new button to your toolbar. Now click on it.
- Excel will prompt you to assign a macro to that button. Select the macro from the list shown (it includes the macros in your add-in file).
- That is all.
Now go solveWorldProblemsAndGetSomeCoffee()
How do you customize your QAT / Toolbars ?
Customizing quick access toolbar can be a very productive thing to do. I used to have a bunch of macros added to QAT for quickly accessing them when I was working.
What about you? How do you customize QAT or toolbars? Do you add macros? Share your experience using comments.














13 Responses to “Convert fractional Excel time to hours & minutes [Quick tip]”
Hi Purna..
Again a great tip.. Its a great way to convert Fractional Time..
By the way.. Excel has two great and rarely used formula..
=DOLLARFR(7.8,60) and =DOLLARDE(7.48,60)
basically US Account person uses those to convert some currency denomination.. and we can use it to convert Year(i.e 3.11 Year = 3 year 11 month) and Week(6.5 week = 6 week 5 days), in the same manner...
This doesn't work for me. When applying the custom format of [h]:mm to 7.8 I get 187:12
Any ideas why?
@Jason
7.8 in Excel talk means 7.8 days
=7.8*24
=187.2 Hrs
=187 Hrs 12 Mins
If you follow Chandoo's instructions you will see that he divides the 7.8 by 24 to get it to a fraction of a day
Simple, assuming the fractional time is in cell A1,
Use below steps to convert it to hours & minutes:
1. In the target cell, write =A1/24
2. Select the target cell and press CTRL+1 to format it (you can also right click and select format cells)
3. Select Custom from “Number” tab and enter the code [h]:mm
4. Done!
Hi, sorry to point this out but Column C Header is misspelt 'Hours Palyed'
good one
So how do I go the other way and get hours and minutes to fractional time?
If you have 7.5 in cell A1,
- Use int(A1) to get the hours.
- Use mod(A1,1)*60 to get minutes.
If you have 7:30 (formatted as time) in A1
- Use hours(a1) to get hours
- Use minutes(a1) to get minutes.
I had the same issue. You can solve it by changing the format as described above:
Right click cell > Format Cells > (In Number tab) > Custom > Then enter the code [h]:mm
([hh]:mm and [hhh]:mm are nice too if you want to show leading zeros)
Thanks guys, these are the tips I'm looking for.
...dividing the number of minutes elapsed by the percent change is my task - "int" is the key this time
It doesnt work for greater than 24 hours
It returns 1:30 for 25.5 hours. It should have returned 25:30
Ideally I would right function as
=QUOTIENT(A1,1)&":"&MOD(A1,1)*60
Sorry, replied to wrong comment....
----
I had the same issue. You can solve it by changing the format as described above:
Right click cell > Format Cells > (In Number tab) > Custom > Then enter the code [h]:mm
([hh]:mm and [hhh]:mm are nice too if you want to show leading zeros)
Clever use of MOD here to extract the decimal part of a number. Divide a number containing a decimal by 1 and return the remainder. Humm. Very clever.
Thanks very much, extremely useful !