What is the Soma cube?

A dissection puzzle of seven pieces — one made of three cubes and six made of four — that fit together into a 3×3×3 cube. There are 240 essentially different ways to do it, which is what makes it a good puzzle rather than a one-trick one.

Why are there no glue tabs?

The same reason the Platonic solids here have none. These get cut, folded and taped on the inside, and a plain net is unambiguously correct, while pairing up tabs is the kind of thing that looks right on screen and fails in your hands.

How are the nets worked out?

Every face of a polycube unfolds onto the same square grid, because each turn is a right angle. The tool walks the surface of each piece, laying every face into the next square along, and only accepts a layout where no two faces land on the same paper, nothing touches a face it is not folded to, and no square is walled in.

Soma Cube Template — Free, All 7 Puzzle Nets, PDF & SVG

The soma cube template, flat and folded

Soma cube template — free printable dieline with cut and fold lines, any size — The printable dieline at its standard size. Type your own size above for yours.

Soma cube folded up from the template — the finished box — The finished soma cube, made from it.

What this template is for

All seven Soma pieces — twenty-seven cubes in total — as flat nets. They assemble into a 3×3×3 cube 240 different ways, and into a great many other shapes besides.

Also called soma puzzle · polycube puzzle · 3x3x3 cube puzzle · paper puzzle cubes — all the same shape, and this is it.

Classroom geometry and spatial reasoning
Puzzle and brain-teaser gifts
Maths club and STEM activities
Desk toys and party favours

How to use this template

All four downloads are the same soma cube at the same size — only the format changes.

PDF printing at home: Print at 100 per cent, or hand it to a print shop as "actual size, no scaling".
PNG 300 dpi Canva, Photoshop, Procreate: Upload, lock it in place and design your soma cube on top. Free plan and phone included. Full Canva walkthrough →
SVG Cricut, Illustrator, Inkscape, Affinity: Vector, with cuts, folds and labels on separate layers. Cricut and Silhouette walkthrough →
DXF Silhouette, laser and vinyl cutters: Two layers, CUT and FOLD — and the one free Silhouette Studio Basic will open.

Getting it printed properly →

Printing it

Type your size above, then download the PDF.
Print at 100% — never “fit to page”, or every measurement comes out wrong.
Too big for the paper? Pick your paper size and leave Fit the pieces to the page ticked: each piece gets its own place on a sheet and the PDF comes out with every page in it, nothing cut in half and nothing to tape.

How to put it together

These pictures are the soma cube itself, not a generic diagram — change the measurements above and the template changes, but the three steps never do.

Cut the solid lines
Every solid line is a cut. Do the inside shapes first, while the sheet is still whole and easy to hold.
Score every dashed line
Dashed lines are folds. Score each one first — an empty ballpoint against a ruler — or the card cracks along the outside of the bend.
Fold, glue and hold
Cut each net, score and fold every dashed line, then close it with tape on the inside. Do one piece at a time and keep the letters: the puzzle is much easier to talk about when the pieces have names.

Glue: a glue stick for paper, white PVA on card — hold each seam thirty seconds, and let it dry before you use it.

Questions about the soma cube

What is the Soma cube?: A dissection puzzle of seven pieces — one made of three cubes and six made of four — that fit together into a 3×3×3 cube. There are 240 essentially different ways to do it, which is what makes it a good puzzle rather than a one-trick one.
Why are there no glue tabs?: The same reason the Platonic solids here have none. These get cut, folded and taped on the inside, and a plain net is unambiguously correct, while pairing up tabs is the kind of thing that looks right on screen and fails in your hands.
How are the nets worked out?: Every face of a polycube unfolds onto the same square grid, because each turn is a right angle. The tool walks the surface of each piece, laying every face into the next square along, and only accepts a layout where no two faces land on the same paper, nothing touches a face it is not folded to, and no square is walled in.

Print your own design on it

Add a logo, photo or pattern in the panel on the left and drag it onto the soma cube. It is trimmed to the cut outline, embedded properly in the PDF, and never leaves your computer — most free template sites hand you the outline and stop there. How printing your own design works.

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