Can I learn the total time spent editing a document?

E

Emmalemma

I'd like to know the amount of time I've spent working in a document and/or
Power Point presentation. Is there a way to find out this information?
 
C

Carey Frisch [MVP]

Consult your clock or watch.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

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:

| I'd like to know the amount of time I've spent working in a document and/or
| Power Point presentation. Is there a way to find out this information?
 
E

Echo S

Emmalemma said:
I'd like to know the amount of time I've spent working in a document and/or
Power Point presentation. Is there a way to find out this information?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, there's no good way to do this, at least in PPT.

In File|Properties|Statistics, there's a "total editing time" option -- but
you can't rely on it. Those minutes of editing seem to get really whacky the
more versions of PPT the file is saved from. For example, a file I worked on
recently says total editing time is "36249 Minutes." That's 600+ minutes,
which is fifteen 40-hour weeks! Now, the file's "create date" was about 18
months ago, but I know good and well nobody has spent nearly 4 solid months
working on it during that time. I have another recent file that lists 46
minutes editing time, and I know I personally worked on it longer than that.

I just wanted to let you know about this fallacious time count in case you
run across it in your search for a way to track your time.

As for Word, it also has the same "total editing time" under
File|Properties|Statistics, but I don't know if it's any more reliable in
Word than it is in PPT or not. You might ask in one of the Word newsgroups
if nobody here knows.

You may want to check into time tracking software -- or do what someone else
suggested and track it by hand. I tend to track my time in Excel. I set up
start time and end time columns with another column that figures my actual
working time and another for notes about what job I'm working on.
 
B

Bob Buckland ?:-\)

Hi Emmalemma,

In either Word or Powerpoint you can use File=>Properties=>Statistics to see the total editing time. Basically that value is the
amount of time you have had the document or presentation open on your PC desktop rather than a measure of time spent working on it.

========
I'd like to know the amount of time I've spent working in a document and/or
Power Point presentation. Is there a way to find out this information? >>
--
Let us know if this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?:)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

For Everyday MS Office tips to "use right away" -
http://microsoft.com/events/series/administrativetipsandtricks.mspx
 
E

Echo S

Bob Buckland ?:-) said:
Hi Emmalemma,

In either Word or Powerpoint you can use File=>Properties=>Statistics to
Click to expand...
see the total editing time. Basically that value is the
amount of time you have had the document or presentation open on your PC
Click to expand...
desktop rather than a measure of time spent working on it.

It's buggy, then, Bob, at least in PowerPoint, because I have a PPT file I
worked on for 1.75 hours a couple of weeks ago, yet it shows a total editing
time of 46 minutes.
 
B

Bob Buckland ?:-\)

Hi Echo,

In Word it's from a field code {EditTime}, so when/how it
updates may depend on the settings for field updating, but
I haven't checked it in quite awhile, so I may not be recalling
that correctly. I'm suspecting that it's something similar in
Powerpoint (as far as what might trigger the field/statistic update).

============
<<
It's buggy, then, Bob, at least in PowerPoint, because I have a PPT file I
worked on for 1.75 hours a couple of weeks ago, yet it shows a total editing
time of 46 minutes.

Echo [MS PPT MVP] >>>
--
Let us know if this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?:)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

For Everyday MS Office tips to "use right away" -
http://microsoft.com/events/series/administrativetipsandtricks.mspx
 
E

Echo S

Very interesting. Thanks for the additional info!
(But it's definitely not right in PPT, whatever it is!)
 
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