Free format COBOL is selected using the SOURCEFORMAT"FREE" directive.
The first six characters are considered part of the normal source line and may contain COBOL source code. Column 1 takes the role of the indicator area as follows:
| * | comment line |
| / | comment line starting on a new page in the listing file |
| D or d | followed by space, debugging line |
| $ | special line (for example, directive, conditional compilation) |
| any other character | normal source line |
There are no continuation lines. Continuation of alphanumeric literals is achieved through concatenation (for example, "A" & "B").
There is no distinction between area A and area B.
There is no fixed right margin, though for practical purposes this implementation restricts the maximum length of a source line to 256 bytes of source when represented in UTF8 encoding.
Comment-entries are only allowed on the same line as the paragraph header and must not continue onto another line.