Previous month with month name in google sheets

Question

I have a month "August" and need a formula that gives me the name of the month before.

=TEXT(EDATE("August"; -1); "MMMM")

This does not work, as EDATE expects a DATE(). Can anyone advice?

Solution 1

if you can use month as a number, I would recommend you

=TEXT(EDATE(DATE(2016, 8, 1); -1); "MMMM")

for example

If not

=TEXT(EDATE(DATE(DATEVALUE("August 01, 2016")); -1); "MMMM")

Solution 2

All you need is the following formula:

=text(EDATE(today(),-1),"MMMM")

Comments

[FlorianT.]

Perfect! With relative cell reference, this worked: =TEXT(EDATE(DATE(B1; DATEVALUE(C1 & " 01 " & B1); 1); -1); "MMMM") B1 is the year, C1 e.g. "August".