There are multiple ways to get the monthly date in excel. The method you would choose will depend on how you want the result to be. For instance, whether you want it as a text string or have the entire date but only show the month's name.
There are two methods.
Custom Formatting
Using custom number formatting to get the month name is the best method.
Steps to follow on this operation;
1. Select all the cells with the dates you want to show the month name. It opens up the tabs which you need to work on.
2. Click the Home tab. It will show the other tabs, I.e., the number group, etc. Under the numerous tabs displayed, select the required one, the number group.
3. In the number group, click on the dialog icon or use the keyboard shortcut; control +1. It will open the format cells in the dialog box. Further, search for the date, and options will display. Custom is one of the options displayed right-click on it.
4. In the category opinions, click on custom. On the other tab, you will see the day; month year indicated as dd-mm-yyyy.
Here there are several categories.
General, text, fraction
Numbers, time, special
Currency, percentage, custom, etc.
Click the number format code, using one of the existing codes as the starting point.
Click ok
1. In the type field, enter mmmm; you should see one of the month names in the preview. It has the same display where mmmm falls in the same line with dd-mm-yyyy.
2. click ok.
The above steps would convert all the dates into their full month names.
The different codes that can be used are;
- m- This shows the month number, January-1
- mm- This shows the month number, but there are two digits, February-02
- mmm- This shows the month name in a 3-letter code, January- Jan, September- Sep.
- Mmmm- This shows the complete month name, October.
- Mmmmm- This shows the 1st alphabet, February-F, May-M.
Power Query
The power query is just but a slight opposite of the custom formatting. It is a very quick and good way to convert dates into months.
It has inbuilt features that allow you to convert a date into a month's name quickly.
Steps.
1. Select any cell in the dataset. Any cell means the cell that contains data. When you open it, it will display the data.
2. Click the Data tab. Right-click it for the displays of the range.
3. In the Get & Transform Data tab, right-click on From Table/Range. It also displays tabs.
4. In the Power Query editor that opens up, right-click on the Date column header. It will show the transformation of what is needed for the change.
5. Go to Transform >>Month >>Name of the month.
6. Click on Close and Load.