A to Z of Excel Functions: The HOUR Function

Welcome back to our regular A to Z of Excel Functions blog. Today we look at the HOUR function.

The HOUR function

This function returns the hour of a time value (expecting a serial number). The hour is given as an integer, ranging from 0 (12:00 A.M.) to 23 (11:00 P.M.). The HOUR function employs the following syntax to operate:

HOUR(serial_number)

The HOUR function has the following argument:

• serial_number: this is required and represents the time that contains the hour you want to find.  Times may be entered as text strings within quotation marks (e.g. "6:45 PM"), as decimal numbers (for example, 0.78125, which represents 6:45 PM, or as results of other formulas or functions (for example, TIMEVALUE("6:45 PM")).

It should be further noted that:

• time values are a portion of a date value and are represented by a decimal number (e.g. 12:00 PM is represented as 0.5 because it is half of a day).

Please see my example below: 

We’ll continue our A to Z of Excel Functions soon. Keep checking back – there’s a new blog post every business day.

A full page of the function articles can be found here.