This document provides an overview of data compression techniques. It discusses how data compression reduces the number of bits needed to represent data, saving storage space and transmission bandwidth. It describes lossy compression methods like JPEG and MPEG that eliminate redundant information, resulting in smaller file sizes but some loss of data quality. Lossless compression methods like ZIP and GIF are also covered, which compress data without any loss for file types like text where quality is important. Specific lossless compression techniques like run length encoding, Huffman coding, Lempel-Ziv coding are explained. The document concludes with a brief mention of image, video, audio and dictionary based compression methods.