Many of us face this problem.
We have some data in a few cells. Either for alignment or structure, we would like to merge the cell contents in to one big cell. But Excel wont help as it cannot merge values from all cells.
Aparna writes,
Hi Chandoo,
Can you tell me how to merge rows without losing the data in the format given below.
given data:
row 1: abcd
row 2: xyzrequired format :
row 1: abcd xyz
It would save a great amount of my time if i could get a solution to this !
That got me thinking, there should be a way to merge cells without losing data?!?
Of course there is. You can use simple features in Excel to do this with ease.
Select all the cells where your data is. (All the cells need to be in one area in one column).- Adjust the column width so that you can fit all contents in one cell. (basically make it wide enough)
- Select Home Ribbon > Fill > Justify
- Merge cells now.
That is all. The text from selected cells will be magically re-arranged in top-most cell. If you see the text spreading 2 rows, just make the column wider and repeat the process.
See this simple animation aside to understand how it works.
But wait, this technique has some limitations,
- It doesnt work if the selected cells have numbers or formulas
- It only works for cells in a single column, if the cells are spread across several columns, justify will not work.
- It requires a lot of steps.
Shouldn’t there be a better way to merge cells without losing data?!?
Of course there is, You can write a simple macro to do this job for you.
For eg. here is the JoinAndMerge() macro I have written that works for pretty much all types of data.
Sub JoinAndMerge()
‘joins all the content in selected cells
‘and puts the resulting text in top most cell
‘then merges all cells
Dim outputText As String
Const delim = ” “
On Error Resume Next
For Each cell In Selection
outputText = outputText & cell.Value & delim
Next cell
With Selection
.Clear
.Cells(1).Value = outputText
.Merge
.HorizontalAlignment = xlGeneral
.VerticalAlignment = xlCenter
.WrapText = True
End With
End Sub
Just copy this code in to a new module or add it your personal macros workbook. And you can use it to quickly merge cells without loosing data. Simple.
The code is easy to figure out if you know basic VBA. So I will not go in to detail.
What to do with all the saved time?
Simple, go read a quick tip.
PS: It is likely that you will save even more time by reading the quick tips, then what?
PPS: Simple, go play.
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 !