Formulas and Functions

Chapter 2 Overview of the iWork Functions 37
Value Type Description
duration A duration 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.
The rst format consists of a number, followed
by a time period (such as h for hours), optionally
followed by a space, and is repeated for other
time periods. You can use either the abbreviation
for specifying the period, 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. TIme periods do not have to be entered
in order and spaces are not required. 5d 5h is the
same as 5h5d. If typed directly into a formula, the
string should be enclosed in quotation marks, as
in “12h 5d 3m”.
A duration can also be entered as 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 a.m. 5:00.0
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 “5:00.0”. If the cell is formatted to a
particular duration display, the duration units are
applied relative to that duration display and the
milliseconds need not be specied.