Every Rubik's cube solution — whether it comes from a beginner method, an advanced speed-solving algorithm, or from xCubes Solver — is written in the same standard notation. Once you understand it, you can follow any algorithm in the world, regardless of who wrote it or for which size of cube.
Each face of the cube has a one-letter name based on its position relative to you when you hold the cube:
U — Up (the top face)D — Down (the bottom face)L — LeftR — RightF — Front (the face pointing at you)B — Back (the face pointing away from you)A solution might start with something like R U R' U'. Each
letter tells you which face to rotate, and modifiers after the letter tell
you how.
A single capital letter means rotate that face 90° clockwise, as if you were looking directly at the face from outside the cube.
| Notation | Meaning |
|---|---|
R | Turn the right face 90° clockwise. |
R' | Turn the right face 90° counter-clockwise. The apostrophe is read as "prime". |
R2 | Turn the right face 180°. Direction doesn't matter. |
This pattern works for all six faces: U', F2,
D', B2, and so on.
On a 4×4 cube and larger, faces have more than one layer that can
rotate. To turn two outer layers at once, use a wide turn,
written with a lowercase letter or with a w after the capital:
| Notation | Meaning |
|---|---|
r or Rw | Turn the outer two right layers together 90° clockwise. |
r' or Rw' | Same, counter-clockwise. |
r2 or Rw2 | 180° turn of the outer two right layers. |
The xCubes Solver uses the lowercase convention (r,
u, f, l, d,
b) by default, because it's more compact.
On a 3×3, the inner middle layer between two faces can be turned by itself. These are slice turns:
M — middle layer between L and R, follows the direction of L.E — middle layer between U and D, follows the direction of D.S — middle layer between F and B, follows the direction of F.Slice turns appear mainly in optimized algorithms for advanced solvers. Beginner methods avoid them.
Sometimes an algorithm needs you to reorient the entire cube without turning any layer. These rotations use lowercase axis letters:
x — rotate the whole cube around the R-L axis, in the direction of R.y — rotate around the U-D axis, in the direction of U.z — rotate around the F-B axis, in the direction of F.The prime and 2 modifiers work the same: x', y2,
etc.
Here's a famous 3×3 algorithm called Sune, used in the OLL step of CFOP:
R U R' U R U2 R'
Read left to right: turn R, then U, then R', then U, then R, then U2, then R'. Each move is one quarter-turn (or two, for the U2). It should take you less than three seconds to perform once you've practiced.
For 6×6 and bigger, the lowercase wide notation can be extended with a
number: 3Rw turns the outer three right layers together,
4Rw turns four, and so on. xCubes Solver uses this
convention automatically when needed in its solutions for big cubes.
You don't need to memorize the wide-turn conventions to use the solver — every move in the solution view is annotated with a small diagram showing exactly which layers move and in which direction.
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