Working with dates in Excel can be tricky. Fortunately, there are several powerful functions that you can use to make the process easier. The MONTH function is one of these functions and can be used to extract the month from a date.

To use the MONTH function, you need to provide the date that you want to extract the month from. This can be provided as either a number, text string or cell reference. For example, if you want to extract the month from the date 1/15/2021, you would use the formula =MONTH("1/15/2021").

When the MONTH function is executed, it returns the number of the month for the given date. In the case of our example, the result would be 1, because the date is in January. It's important to note that the MONTH function always returns the numeric equivalent of the month and not the name.

The MONTH function can also be used to extract the month from a cell reference. For example, if you have the date 1/15/2021 stored in cell A1, you can use the formula =MONTH(A1). This will return the same result as using the date directly in the formula, but it is more flexible because you can easily change the date by changing the value in cell A1.

In conclusion, the MONTH function is a powerful tool in Excel that can be used to extract the month from a given date. By understanding how to use this function, you will be able to quickly and easily extract the month from any date in your workbook.