An apparatus includes a first circuit and a second circuit. The first circuit may be configured to generate a reduced representation of an input sequence of characters by replacing a repetition of a sequence of one or more characters by a code representing the repetition of the sequence of one or more characters. The second circuit may be configured to generate a compressed representation of the input sequence of characters in response to the reduced representation of the input sequence of characters. The second circuit is generally configured to recognize the code representing the repetition of the sequence of one or more characters and take into account the repetition of the sequence of one or more characters during a compression operation.