Adaptive compression and decompression techniques are described. In at least some embodiments, compression techniques include adaptively compressing a plurality of input words into a plurality of compression codes and outputting the compression codes upon encountering an end-of-file signal. In at least some embodiments, the compression codes are fewer in number than the number of unique bit patterns requiring unique compression codes under LZW (Lempel Ziv & Welch) compression. In at least some other embodiments, decompression techniques include adaptively decompressing a plurality of compressed code words into a plurality of decompressed words and outputting the decompressed words upon encountering an end-of-file signal.