Inserting the Current Time with Seconds

As you have learned in other ExcelTips, you can use Ctrl+: (that's a colon) to enter the current time into a cell. The resulting cell value is equal to the hours and minutes of the current time. In other words, the seconds will always be zero.

If you want to insert the current time and have it include the seconds, the best way is to use a macro. You can then assign the macro to a keyboard shortcut or a toolbar button (or both) so it can be immediately popped into place. The following macro will do the trick nicely:

Sub TimeStamp()
    ActiveCell.Value = Time
    ActiveCell.NumberFormat = "h:mm:ss AM/PM"
End Sub

Notice that the time is placed in the cell, and then the cell is formatted to show hours, minutes, and seconds.