Cube notation is a compact language for describing turns. The letter identifies a face: R is right, L is left, U is up, D is down, F is front, and B is back.
Read moves from left to right
An algorithm is a sequence of individual turns separated by spaces. Read it from left to right and keep the same front orientation unless the instructions explicitly tell you to rotate the whole cube. The centre stickers identify each face, so “R” means the right face from the solver’s current perspective—not the right side of the page.
Prime and double turns
An apostrophe tells you to turn the face anticlockwise, and a 2 tells you to make a half-turn. Practise each move on the Digital Cube before combining moves into an algorithm.
The three most common turn forms
Ris a clockwise quarter-turn of the right face.R'is an anticlockwise quarter-turn of the right face.R2is a half-turn. Direction does not matter for a 180-degree move.
Wide turns, slice turns and whole-cube rotations appear in more advanced methods. Learn the six basic face letters first, then use the algorithms hub and the pattern library to find short sets of moves to practise.
Which way is clockwise on the back or bottom?
Imagine looking straight at the face named by the move. B is clockwise from behind the cube, so it looks reversed when you watch from the front. D is clockwise when you look up at the bottom. Do not use the direction seen on your screen as the definition of a turn.
For a short check, do R four times: the cube returns to its initial state. R R' also returns to the initial state. These checks test direction and amount; they do not teach a solving algorithm by themselves.
Wide turns and numbered layers
Rw turns the outer right layer and the adjacent inner layer together. On a 4×4 or larger cube, 3Rw turns the three rightmost layers. Some sources use a lower-case r for a wide turn. Cube Solver writes the w explicitly.
2R turns only the second layer from the right. In comparison, R2 turns the outer right face halfway. 2R2 combines the two instructions by turning the second layer from the right by 180 degrees. The prefix identifies the layer by counting in from the named face. The suffix tells you how far to turn it.
Middle slices on a 3×3
M: the slice between L and R, turning in the direction of L.E: the slice between U and D, turning in the direction of D.S: the slice between F and B, turning in the direction of F.
Prime marks and half-turns work the same way here. M' reverses M and E2 makes a half-turn. Cubes with an even number of layers have no single central layer. Follow the numbered-layer notation given explicitly in the algorithm for your cube size.
Whole-cube rotations
x rotates the entire cube in the direction of R; the old front becomes the new top. y rotates it in the direction of U; the old right becomes the new front. z rotates it in the direction of F; the old top becomes the new right.
These regrips change which face the letters in subsequent moves refer to. Rotating the camera in Digital Cube changes your view while the labelled frame of reference for moves stays fixed. The lesson player explains whole-cube regrips separately when they form part of a worked example.
Read a complete sequence and its inverse
In R U F2, turn the right face clockwise, the top face clockwise, then the front halfway. To undo it, reverse the order and direction: F2 U' R'. Half-turns are their own inverse. Keep the same orientation for both sequences.
Some printed guides use round brackets to group the moves in a trigger or a number to show how many times to repeat it. For example, (R U R' U') 6 means six full repetitions. When using a Cube Solver practice link, write out each turn. The link accepts face turns, wide turns, numbered-layer turns and slice turns, as well as x/y/z rotations. Expand any shorthand for repeated moves into individual turns.
For move-by-move examples, open First Moves. For parity notation on bigger cubes, use the 4×4 notation lesson or 5×5 notation lesson.
