duration value

A duration value is a length of time or a reference to a cell containing a length of time. Duration values consist of weeks (w or weeks), days (d or days), hours (h or hours), minutes (m or minutes), seconds (s or seconds), and milliseconds (ms or milliseconds).

A duration value can be entered in one of two formats:

• A number, followed by a time period (such as h for hours), optionally followed by a space; this format is repeated for additional time periods. You can specify the period using either the abbreviation, such as “h”, or the full name, such as “hours.” For example, 12h 5d 3m represents a duration of 12 hours, 5 days, and 3 minutes. If typed directly into a formula, the string must be enclosed in quotation marks, as in “12h 5d 3m”. Time periods do not have to be entered in order and spaces are not required. For example, “2w 3d 2h 10m 0s 5ms”, “3d 2h 2w 10 m 0s 5ms”, and “2w3d2h10m0s5ms” are equivalent.

• A series of numbers delimited by colons. If this format is used, the seconds argument should be included and end with a decimal followed by the number of milliseconds, which can be 0, if the duration value could be confused with a date/time value. For example, 12:15:30.0 would represent a duration of 12 hours, 15 minutes, and 30 seconds, whereas 12:15:30 would be 12:15:30 PM. 0:5:0.0 would represent a duration of exactly 5 minutes. If typed directly into a function, the string should be enclosed in quotation marks, as in “12:15:30.0” or “0:5:0.0”. If the cell is set to display duration using a particular format, the duration units are applied relative to that duration display and the milliseconds need not be specified.