Notation

Every letter, and what it does to the cube.

The notation is small: six faces, two modifiers, and a handful of turns that move more than one layer. Learn it once and every algorithm on this site — and in every guide you will ever read — becomes readable. Each picture below is a solved cube after that single turn, and you can tap any of them to flip back to the solved cube and see exactly what moved.

The letters name positions, not colours

A letter names whichever face is pointing that way at this moment. Turn the cube in your hands and R becomes a different face entirely. That is why an algorithm works whatever colour you happen to be looking at, and why so many instructions begin by telling you how to hold the cube rather than what to turn.

The pictures on this page start from a solved cube drawn the usual way for diagrams: white up, green in front, red on the right. When you are solving on this site, white goes on the bottom and yellow finishes on top — so during a solve, U is the yellow face. The letters do not change. Only what sits under them does.

The starting cube for every picture below.

The six face turns

One letter per face. Each turns a single layer — the nine pieces on that side of the cube — and leaves the other eighteen where they were.

U Up

The top layer, clockwise seen from above. The front row travels round to the left.

D Down

The bottom layer, clockwise seen from below. From where you are sitting it looks anticlockwise, and the front row travels round to the right.

R Right

The right-hand layer, clockwise seen from the right. The front column goes upwards.

L Left

The left-hand layer, clockwise seen from the left — so it looks anticlockwise from the front, and the front column goes downwards.

F Front

The face nearest you, clockwise as you look at it. The top row goes round to the right.

B Back

The far face, clockwise seen from behind the cube. From the front it reads anticlockwise: the top row goes round to the left.

Two modifiers

Every letter comes in three forms, and they apply to slices, wide turns and rotations exactly as they do to faces.

R Plain letter

A quarter turn clockwise, seen from that face.

R^' Prime

The same quarter turn the other way round. R' undoes R, and the two together leave the cube untouched. Said aloud as "R prime".

R² Half turn

Two quarter turns. It arrives in the same place whichever way you go, so it never takes a prime — nobody writes R2'.

Wide turns: two layers at once

A wide turn takes a face and the slice behind it — two of the three layers, going the way the outer face goes. Written with a w as Rw, or as a lowercase r. The two spellings mean the same thing, and you can choose which one this site shows you in the appearance menu.

Rw Wide right

The right face and the slice behind it, turning together the way R turns. Also written r. Equal to R M'.

Uw Wide up

The top face and the slice below it, turning the way U turns. Also written u. Equal to U E'.

Fw Wide front

The front face and the slice behind it, turning the way F turns. Also written f. Equal to F S.

Lw, Dw and Bw exist too, and behave the same way: the face plus the slice next to it, in the direction of the face.

Slice turns: the middle layer alone

A slice turn moves a middle layer and leaves both outer faces standing. There are three, one per axis. The only genuinely awkward thing about them is which way round each one goes — and that is the thing people forget, so here it is as a table before anything else.

Slice	The layer	Follows	Name
M	Between L and R	L	Middle
E	Between U and D	D	Equator
S	Between F and B	F	Standing

M Middle

The slice between L and R, following L. The top of the middle column comes towards you and down the front.

E Equator

The slice between U and D, following D. The front of the belt goes round to the right.

S Standing

The slice between F and B, following F. The top of the slice goes round to the right.

Slices carry centres, so an algorithm full of M turns can leave a cube that looks solved but sits rotated. It is also why the H and Z permutations are written with them: rocking the middle slice back and forth swaps opposite edges without touching a single corner.

Cube rotations: turning yourself, not the cube

x, y and z turn the whole cube in your hands. No piece moves relative to any other, so nothing is solved and nothing is broken — but every letter that follows now means a different face, and that is the point of doing one.

x Roll forward

The whole cube in the direction of R. The front face rolls up to the top — this is how you look at the bottom layer without losing your place.

y Spin

The whole cube in the direction of U. The right face comes round to the front. This is the rotation you make between F2L pairs.

z Tip sideways

The whole cube in the direction of F. The left face comes up to the top, and everything you knew about which hand does what changes with it.

A rotation is the three parallel layers turning together, which is why x is R M' L', y is U E' D' and z is F S B'. Algorithms on this site print rotations in a lighter italic style, so you can see at a glance where one expects you to move your hands rather than the cube.

Reading an algorithm

Everything on the site is written in the notation above. Seven rules cover all of it.

Read left to right, one move at a time. Nothing happens at the same time as anything else.
A prime is the same turn the other way. R' undoes R; a whole algorithm is undone by reversing it and priming every move.
A 2 is half a turn, and never carries a prime.
Direction is judged from outside the face being turned.
M follows L, E follows D, S follows F.
Lowercase and w mean the same wide turn: r is Rw, two layers deep.
A rotation changes what every letter after it means. A wide turn changes it for the pieces it carried.

RUR^'U^' 4

Four moves, but one motion: right, up, right back, up back. Most people learn this before they learn anything else, and six repetitions of it bring the cube back to solved.

RUR^'U^'R^'FR²U^'R^'U^'RUR^'F^' 14

The T permutation. Fourteen letters, but only four things your hands do — learn it as R U R' U', then R' F R2 U', then R' U' R U, then R' F'.

Try it

Faces, slices, wide turns and rotations, all on one keypad. Drag the cube to look round the back of it.

No turns yet

A good first exercise: run M four times and watch the middle column go all the way round. A better second one: run Rw and then x'. What you are left with is a single L turn — a wide turn is a rotation and a face turn rolled into one, which is the whole of why the centres move.

The whole thing on one screen

Symbol	Turns	Which way
UDRLFB	One face, one layer deep	Clockwise, seen from outside that face
R^'	The same layer	Anticlockwise — the prime reverses any move
R²	The same layer	Half a turn; direction does not matter
RwUwFw	A face plus the slice behind it	The way the outer face goes. Also written `r u f`
M	The slice between L and R	The way `L` goes
E	The slice between U and D	The way `D` goes
S	The slice between F and B	The way `F` goes
x	The whole cube	The way `R` goes
y	The whole cube	The way `U` goes
z	The whole cube	The way `F` goes

18 face turns 18 wide turns 9 slice turns 9 rotations Every algorithm on the site, written in these