I know that =month(1&"March") gives me 3, the third month. Can anybody explain why?
Also, how would I take the number 3, for example, and return "March" using a formula? Basically the reverse of my first question. Is this the best there is? =TEXT(C17*29,"mmmm")
Thanks
To start out answering the first question, =MONTH(date) is a formula that will look at the date inside the function, and return its month (January = 1, February = 2, and so on). However, it must have date stored as a date inside of it (ie, it cannot use a string "January", "February", etc).
So to allow it to use the string, we use 1&"January", 1&"February", etc. By using 1&*monthname*, we coerce the value into a valid date. To further illustrate, go to a cell and type January. Then go to the next cell and type 1January. The cell you typed 1January should change automatically to 1-Jan. If you format the cell in a mm/dd/yyyy format, it will read 01/01/2011. Since this is a valid date, the MONTH function can handle it.
For your second question, that is a viable option. Another way would be to use:
=TEXT(DATE(1900,C17,1),"mmmm")
