Edit Patches
Split and Join Patches
How each face are joined together determines if a papercraft is easy-to-build. Unfolder will try to join faces in the best way when unfolding. If you are not satisfied with the program-produced result, you can manually split and join faces with Join Tool:
- Click a joined edge in the 2D view or 3D view to split it.
- Click a split edge in the 2D view or 3D view to join it.
- Drag in the 2D view to make a selection box to split multiple edges at once.
If the Explode after Splitting option in the inspector is checked, the patches will move a short distance in the opposite direction after splitting. Otherwise, they will stay in place.
Move Patches
A patch can be moved by dragging, no matter which tool you are using. With the Select Tool, multiple patches can be moved together by selecting them at first. Holding down the shift key while dragging will constrain the movement to a particular axis.
To move the patches to the same position on another page, hold down the option key while dragging. You can also hold down the option key and press an arrow key to move them to the adjacent page.
You can use the following ways to arrange the selected patches:
- Choose Edit ▸ Align ▸ the menu item of the alignment type you want.
- Choose Edit ▸ Distribute ▸ the menu item of the distribution type you want.
- Click the
button on the toolbar to open the arrangement panel, then click the button of the arrangement type you want.
Rotate Patches
To rotate the patches, select them with the Select Tool and drag the white rotate handle on the middle top of them. Holding down the shift key will constrain the rotation to 15° increments. To rotate patches by 90°, choose Edit ▸ Rotate 90° CCW (Q) or Edit ▸ Rotate 90° CW (W), or click the 
or 
button on the toolbar.
In many cases, you may want to rotate a patch to make some lines match the axis. You can do it in the following steps:
- Drag the rotate center to a vertex. The rotate center will automatically snap to nearby vertices.
- Move the mouse to another vertex. The rotate handle will follow the cursor and automatically snap to nearby vertices.
- Drag to rotate the patch. The line between the rotate center and the rotate handle will snap to the axis automatically.
Lay Out Patches
Creating a paper-saving layout by hand is time-wasting. Unfolder provides you a feature to lay out patches automatically:
- Choose Edit ▸ Automate ▸ Lay Out Patches, or click the button on the toolbar and choose Lay Out Patches to open the settings panel.
- Adjust the settings:
- Quality: higher quality gives a better result but takes more time.
- Page Margin: the minimum distance between the patches and the edges of the page.
- Patches Spacing: the minimum distance between each patch.
- Click the Lay Out button.
Only the selected patches will be laid out. If nothing is selected, all patches will be laid out.
Select Patches and Elements Edit Flaps