Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy was used to analyze coal samples, and the influence of sample morphology on laser ablation properties of coal was analyzed. Coal samples with different morphologies were ablated by 532 nm pulse laser, and plasma was formed at atmospheric pressure. The multi-channel fiber spectroscopy and CCD detector were used to collect and detect of plasma emission signal. The change laws of plasma temperature, electron density and spectral-line intensity with laser energy for different coal samples were analyzed. The analysis results show that sample morphology is a significant influencing factor for laser ablation properties of coal samples. The change laws of plasma temperature, electron density and spectral-line intensity of different samples are obviously different. In the same experimental conditions, the plasma temperature and electron density of pulverized coal are higher than those of lump coal, but the spectral-lines intensity of lump coal is higher than that of pulverized coal.