Numbers for Mac: how to change notation to duration time

When entering Duration I always use the special Duration input notation for Numbers. It's easier and less ambiguous. Numbers is less like to mistake it as text (which is left justified by default as in your screenshot).

To enter one hour, 16 minutes, 46 seconds I simply type:

1h16m46s

If your language is set to Dutch you can enter:

1u16m46s

This is for ease of entering Duration values. You can display those values in various ways in the dropdown under Data Format (Gegevensnotatie). The two cells below have the same Duration value in them, and are just displayed in different ways.

SG

Did you try:

If your system is set to Dutch did you try this?

1u14m46s

If your system is set to English did you try this?

1h16m46s

With the input notion you do not enter the : .

Under Data Format in the panel at the right you can display the date-time with the : if you want.

I usually leave it as 0h 0m 0s to avoid ambiguity between Duration (a span of time) and Date & Time (a point in time) but you have the choice of how to display a Duration value. I find using the h m s (Dutch u m s) notation much easier for entering the Duration values, though.

SG

Try starting with settng the cell's data formation to Duration, and refining that by setting the units to the range you want to use.

Then enter the duration using the format you just set.

Regards, Barry