At 10:01 PM 2/2/2005, Michelle Marie Hartman wrote:

>I am working on some data in Excel that is in time format hh:mm. Many >of these times are over 24 hours (e.g. 45:15). I need to transfer >this data into SPSS, and so far have been unable to do so. SPSS will >recognize anything under 24 hours, but nothing over.

I'm afraid my software versions are so elderly that I can't do a meaningful test.

But, when you transfer an Excel cell with a time over 24 hours, what do you get? System-missing? A ridiculous value? A very large number that makes no sense?

What format are you using for the transferred variable? If you're getting some values, but they aren't making sense, try format DATETIME20 and see what it looks like.

I write this, because often Excel times are transferred to SPSS as date-time values starting at midnight, 30 December 1899. (Don't ask.) For example, from recent thread "Excel 2003 to SPSS 12.0 or reformat a datetime var",

>The variable is formatted in Excel as "12:00 AM." But when imported >into SPSS, SPSS reformats and/or display's this variable as >"30-DEC-1899 12:00:00."

If that's what you're getting, try

COMPUTE TIME_VAR = TIME_VAR - DATE.DMY(30,12,1899).

Alternatively: Excel time variables are in days. If you format the Excel column as a number, rather than a date, and import it as, say, TIME_NUM, you can make it an SPSS time variable by

COMPUTE TIME_VAR = TIME.DAYS(TIME_NUM).