How To Use Feet and Inches in Excel The Easy Way

Want to know a quick and easy way to be able to handle that feet and inch input in excel? This video shows you all that you need to know and explains it in about 3 minutes. No muss no fuss!

The Formula to put into name manager is =EVALUATE(SUBSTITUTE(Sheet1!A1,"-","*12+")) This assumes you've written it into Cell B1.

If this is helpful to you let us know. If you have a better way, let us know that too!

[thishandleisnotavailable]

I saw some people having an issue with this in the comments so I tried it myself and found the following:

You have to actually click the A1 cell when he does it during the creation of the formula. You can't just input the line of code. If you skip this step and just try to paste in the code without clicking the cells you will get an error.

Step 1: Format Column A as text
Step 2: Click cell A1 and enter in "12-5+7/8"
Step 3: Click cell B1 and select Formulas>Name Manager
Step 4: Click New on the Name Manager and input "ftin" for the name
Step 5: Click cell A1
Step 6: Paste =EVALUATE(SUBSTITUTE(Sheet1!A1, "-", "*12+")) into the Refers to: field and press close
Step 7: Click in cell B1 and enter "=ftin"

When you follow these steps exactly, it turns B1 into the decimal form of the input from A1. You can now plug anything into A1 in the format of feet-inches+fraction and it will update B1 to show the decimal equivalent.

[davidblake]

Perfect - exactly what I needed. Excellent explanation - much appreciated 🙂

[Kareemwilldream]

finally got it to work. Thanks. I followed another tip in the comments that said the you must/should click on the cell when creating the evaluation function. Cant just type in the coordinates.

[davefornow]

Thanks for this. Is there a way to get it to ignore an inch symbol if I wanted to use the input string of 12'-5 7/8"? I know I can include the foot symbol ' in the substitution string, but i am trying to figure out if I can get it to ignore in inch symbol at the end instead of erroring out.

[MarcusOrtiz-is]

I would like to create a table where i can enter the measurements (feet and inches) of what the material is supposed to be and have it calculate automatically if i am over or under the 1/4 in tolerance. For example: if a skid is supposed to arrive 66ft X 44 1/2 ft and but the material i received is 65 5/16 ft X 44 1/16 ( I would like for it indicate whether i am over or under tolerance) Thanks in advance

[rossdaboss]

The formula only works on sheet 1. Do I need to enter the formula for each sheet?

[michaeldinh]

how do i go from decimal feet to fraction feet- inch?

[kjohnson]

What would the inverse of this be? After adding many converted (ft-in+fractional) entries, I am trying to show the summation as a total length back into (ft-in+fractional) from. Great video, thank you.

[imrankhan-cwek]

how multiply zero with other numbers i.e 2x0x2

[StopDrinkingtheLeftsKoolaid]

I FOLLOWED THE STEPS AS EXPLAINED IN THE TUTORIAL. I TRY TO ENTER THE FORUMULA AS USUAL AND I KEEP GETTING =FTIN. I ALSO TRIED THE SUGGESTION FROM MATT HAND AND I GET THE SAME RESULT. I HAVE OFFICE 365 IF THAT HELPS. THANKS

[lucleblanc]

Can't get it to work, keep getting name or value errors, I can't seem to isolate the cause, wish I could get it to work. Thanks for the awsom tutorial, I'll keep plugging away in the hope I can fix it cause it shur would be useful.

[davidpollack]

Doesn't work, jsut get's erroers. even cut and paste doesnt work

[Pasham]

Nobody uses this crazy measurement system except you in the world