Entering times in Excel, assign F buttons near numeric keypad for colon and parentheses

Questions & Suggestions
1

Hello

I am hoping that KM is the answer to my problem.

I need to enter a lot of times in Excel and prefer the numeric keypad. The problem is moving to "shift, colon" twice per entry if I am doing hh:mm:ss. I would like to programme/assign one of the F16 to F19 keys on a MAC Magic Keyboard which has a separate numeric pad. My coding skills are extremely BASIC (see what I did there?). that was a long time ago and to be honest I didn't pay enough attention!

Back in the day, the old Commodore/Amiga computer keyboards had parentheses buttons near the numeric pad which made entering formulae much easier and would like to add those to the F buttons too. I guess it would be the same principle.

2

Not a good help but I was just talking to a fellow colleague on a mechanical numpad. And it has parenthesis in the upper rows:
Mechanical Numeric Keypad Brown Switch Gaming Keypad 21 Keys Mini Numpad Portable Keypad Wired Number Pad for iMac Laptop PC MacBook Notebook

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HC47CRK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_W0MICbA1VPFPB

3

Cherry
Many thanks for extremely fast reply (for the record three minutes after I posted my first question). Those pads look great for parentheses (and a lot cheaper than Apple's $129) but they still don't have the colon button or anything that could be programmed to make time entries quicker.

I can't be the only to have this question ... what do they use at NASA? Surely they have lots of time calculations to perform.

If someone goes on to develop it ... don't forget the ideas person!

4

Easily done using KM.
I have set the trigger for the below Macro to be EITHER F16 OR ⌥keypad .

I personally like using the Key Pad period trigger since this keeps my right hand on the pad, and all I need to do is press the OPT key with my right hand. Of course, you can setup any trigger you like.

This Macro is also stored in my "Excel" Macro Group, which means it is active ONLY when Excel app is frontmost.

MACRO:   Enter Colon When in Excel [Example]


#### DOWNLOAD:
<a class="attachment" href="/uploads/default/original/3X/b/b/bb0dd8a699e4b6ac43074e13dc10788b413ee535.kmmacros">Enter Colon When in Excel [Example].kmmacros</a> (2.4 KB)
**Note: This Macro was uploaded in a DISABLED state. You must enable before it can be triggered.**

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![image|458x432](upload://lPQA16TAJZdOka4kFMkpjWu7jvb.png)
5

JMichaelTX

Huge thank you. You have made (will make) 3 people very happy.

  1. Me, because I have been looking for this answer since my Amiga computer died many years ago
  2. The people who sell KM licenses
  3. (Whisper it) the people who sell MAC keyboards with numeric keypads!
1 Like