calculating subtractive splits

And a couple of Excel notes: To get proper subtraction of times, always enter minutes, even if 0. So 31.62 should be entered as 0:31.62 If you want to display hundredths, you may need to change the cell format; Format Cells – Number tab – select Custom – Type: mm:ss.00

Thanks for the Excel tips. Rob, I did as you said and created the custom formatting, which was just what I needed to do. (No point in doing it if you can't get down to hundredths, IMHO.) I actually keep an Excel spreadsheet with all of my times from every meet, so I just added a little split calculator page to the file. Now I can just plug in the times and be done with it. I think I will also create a yard/meters conversion formula as well.

Take out your trusty calculator and convert all times to seconds, then subtract, e.g. 1:04.36 is 64.36 seconds. Isn't this simple enough? I'm sure Excel could be set up to do this. Maybe you could set up one coumn for minutes, then the next one for seconds and hundredths. So if column A is minutes and B is seconds just enter the formula A*60+B and make that column C. Then get your splits by subtracting, for example, C2 from C3 or whatever.

Excel 2000 (and I assume other versions) handles this directly with no "setup" at all if you can do without decimal places. Simply type in 2:43 in one cell, 1:20 in another and a standard subtraction formula in a third and you get a properly formatted answer. If you decimal places you can go into the cell formatting and create whatever format you want want in the way of min, sec, and decimal places.

Originally posted by roseth Thanks for the Excel tips. Rob, I did as you said and created the custom formatting, which was just what I needed to do. (No point in doing it if you can't get down to hundredths, IMHO.) I actually keep an Excel spreadsheet with all of my times from every meet, so I just added a little split calculator page to the file. Now I can just plug in the times and be done with it. I think I will also create a yard/meters conversion formula as well. Why bother with a calculator, guys?Say, the time is 1:05.48 and the split time is 32.23, ok, well 1:05.48 is 65.48 sec, just take that and substract 32.23 ignoring the point, like 6548 - 3223, then just put that point back there down to hundreds and there you go.I mean how much easier can it get that to just make that substraction.Well, you can use a calculator for that, too if you need it, just don't have that point scare you. JUST SIMPLE MATH...

You are just renaming minutes to seconds (1 minute = 60 seconds). Then you subtract whole numbers and decimals (to the nearest hundreth). 1:26.56 = 60 seconds plus 26.55 seconds = 86.56 seconds. Subtract 32.45 from 86.56. A 6th grade Math teacher!

Any moron (or 6th grade math teacher) can do the math for the most part but that's not the point of this discussion. What roseth is attempting to accomplish is to limit the number of manual entries and manual subtracting that is required which can not be done if you have to run through all the numbers manually and then enter them (all) manually into some spreadsheet.

In addition to being an awesome swimmer, Jim, you are so perceptive in taking note of what I was after in this post. Folks, please, I know very well how to do math. I happen to have been raised by a university math professor, and believe it or not I have taken a few math classes myself! I was simply looking for a way to automate the process of entering multiple times with subtractive splits, and do it quickly. And, as I mentioned before, thanks to the Excel skills of a couple of pleasant and helpful members of this board, I have gotten the information that I need. Thanks very much. The end.