A processing device includes compression circuitry to encode an input stream with an encoding that translates multiple symbols of fixed length into multiple codes of variable length between one and a maximum length, to generate a compressed stream. The compression circuitry is to: determine at least a first symbol of the multiple symbols having a first code that exceeds the maximum length; identify a short code of the multiple codes that is to be lengthened to provide an increased encoding capacity for the at least the first symbol; generate multiple code-length converted values including to increase the length of the short code to the maximum length and decrease, to the maximum length, a length of the first code of the at least the first symbol; and generate, with use of the set of code-length converted values, the compressed stream at the output terminal.