With original legal XL date in A1, try:

=TEXT(DATE(YEAR(A1),MONTH(A1)-1,1),"mmmm/yyyy")

--
HTH,

RD

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"Ken G." wrote in message
...
I have a cell with the date in the format of November 1, 2008 and I want
to
read that cell and put the previous month and current year (unless the
month
displayed in the cell is January, in which case I want the new cell to
show
December of the previous year) into a text string in another cell. I
always
struggle manipulating dates in Excel and as usual, I can't get the correct
formula. Please help.