A method of compressing a string array comprising strings with similarity includes selecting a string compression method from among a plurality of available compression methods based on at least which of the available compression method yields the shortest compressed string. The string is then compressed using the selected string compression method. The array of strings to be compressed comprises text characters represented by a first range of values within a word, and compressed string comprises one or more words in a second range of values dedicated to compression and not overlapping with the first range of values. This process is repeated for additional strings in the string array, such that the compression method used for each of a plurality of strings is independently selected.