Help: Making Flexagons

This page explains how to print and fold flexagon templates from Flexagon Templates and Flexagon Inspector. These are companion apps for the book The Secret World of Flexagons.

Select faces:

• Select the front & back button to see the numbers for both the front and back faces, with the template in black-and-white. The large numbers are for the front face, while the small numbers should be copied to the back face.
• Select the front button to see the template with just the numbers for the front face, with different colors for the different numbers.
• Select the back button to see the template with just the numbers for the back face, with different colors for the different numbers. The template is flipped top-to-bottom from the front face.

Printing black and white: The best way to print templates depends on your system. Most browsers have a way to save the template image, typically either by right-clicking your mouse on the image and picking an option such as Save Image, or by pressing on the image and holding your finger until a menu comes up with an option such as Save to Photos. After saving the template, use your favorite method for printing images.

Printing color: One way to get a colored template is to print the front and back of the template separately, cut them out, then paste them back-to-back. Or, if you have a color printer that supports printing on both sides of the paper, you can use software that lets you print the faces back-to-back. Use software such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, or Google Docs to put each image on a separate page of a document. Make sure each image is centered on its page and sized appropriately. When you print your document, find the option for printing on both sides of the page. With the proper alignment, you should be able to print out a double-sided color template.

Preparing the template: If the template has large and small numbers in the center of each leaf, copy the small numbers to the back face. Cut out the template. If the template is in multiple pieces, tape together the edges with the same letters (for example a-to-a or b-to-b) to make a single strip of paper. Prepare the template by folding back-and-forth across the dotted lines.

Folding: Fold adjacent pairs of the largest numbers face-to-face. For example, if the leaves are numbered from 1 up to 5, first fold the adjacent pairs of 5's together. Then fold adjacent pairs of the next largest numbers face-to-face, and so on, continuing until only 1's and 2's are visible. Tape together the first and last edges that are labeled with stars.

For more information, see the book The Secret World of Flexagons.