TIME in SoftMaker PlanMaker: Build a Time from Hours, Minutes, and Seconds

• Introduced: Documented in the PlanMaker 2016 manual; the original introduction release and date remain unknown.
• Availability: Documented in the 2026 English reference; no final supported-version endpoint is established.
• Scope: Versioned documentation does not establish identical behavior across desktop, mobile or localized builds.
• Checked: October 14, 2026, against the official TIME reference, with independent calculations. No native PlanMaker test.

=TIME(Hour, Minute, Second)

The TIME reference lists three arguments and no optional defaults. The examples use numeric hours 0–23, minutes 0–59 and seconds 0–59. These are ordinary clock inputs, not a claim about every accepted boundary or normalization rule.

SoftMaker’s date/time explanation describes time as a fraction of a day. A TIME result is numeric rather than merely the text label "14:30:00". Twelve hours is half a day, or 0.5; there are 86,400 seconds in the 24-hour spreadsheet-day model.

English formulas here use commas. Follow your editor’s formula-entry conventions and local number separators. Formatting can display a numeric time on a 12-hour or 24-hour clock without changing its value.

Use a blank worksheet and place Hour, Minute, Second, Time, Day fraction in A1:E1. Enter the numeric components in A2:C5:

In D2 enter =TIME(A2,B2,C2) and fill to D5. Apply a time format that shows hours, minutes and seconds. In E2 enter =D2 and fill to E5, then give E2:E5 a plain numeric format with ten decimal places. Both columns contain the same values; only their display differs.

In F2 enter =(A2*3600+B2*60+C2)/86400 and fill through F5 as an independent arithmetic check. The 20-minute value is exactly 1/72 of a day. SoftMaker’s five-decimal example is a rounded illustration, not a documented limit on stored precision.

Keep the component table unchanged. Enter =TIME(9,0,0) in H2 and =TIME(17,15,0) in I2. In J2 enter =(I2-H2)*24; expect 8.25 hours.

Put the numeric break length 45 in K2, representing minutes. In L2 enter =J2-K2/60; expect 7.5 hours after the break. A decimal-hour result of 7.5 means seven hours and thirty minutes, not 7:50. Keep J2 and L2 in a numeric format rather than a clock-time format.

This worksheet models elapsed wall-clock time within one date. It does not determine overtime, pay rules or whether a break is paid.

A bare end time of 06:15 is smaller than a start time of 22:30, so subtracting clock times alone can be negative. Include the calendar dates when the shift crosses midnight.

In H5 enter =DATE(2024,6,15)+TIME(22,30,0). In I5 enter =DATE(2024,6,16)+TIME(6,15,0). Apply a date-and-time display format. In J5 enter =(I5-H5)*24; the expected elapsed time is 7.75 hours, or seven hours and forty-five minutes.

DATE supplies the whole-date portion and TIME the fractional portion. The full timestamp preserves which day each clock time belongs to. These numeric timestamps carry no time-zone identifier; daylight-saving changes and cross-zone events need explicitly defined time-zone handling outside this simple model.

If a source already supplies text such as "10:30:00 am", TIMEVALUE’s official reference describes converting it to a serial time value. That function is retained for older-workbook compatibility; it is a different operation from constructing a time from three numeric components.

For a duration longer than a day, retain explicit dates or a numeric duration measure. Do not assume TIME(27,0,0) is a supported way to store 27 elapsed hours: SoftMaker’s short TIME entry does not specify overflow handling. A clock display can also obscure whole elapsed days.

• A decimal appears instead of a time: apply a time display format; 0.5 represents noon in this model.
• The result shows 2:30 PM: that is a 12-hour display of 14:30, not a different numeric value.
• A historical date appears: the cell may be formatted as a date instead of a time.
• Imported components are text: inspect the source values and parsing rather than assuming every coercion matches another spreadsheet.
• Negative, fractional or over-range components: exact normalization and error outputs are not established by the cited short entry. The worked examples avoid them.
• A shift crosses midnight: include explicit dates as above; do not silently add a day unless the input actually represents the following date.

Formatting controls presentation. Keep numeric values for arithmetic and use text labels only when a display string is the intended result.