Digital communication systems and methods combine block encoding and differential and/or amplitude modulation. For every codeword period, one or more additional bits can be transmitted by applying differential modulation and/or amplitude modulation to the codewords. In differential modulation, additional information may be sent by flipping or not flipping the sign of a codeword. In amplitude modulation, additional information may be sent by changing the amplitude of successive codewords. A combination of differential and amplitude encoding may also be used. Thus, the data rate can be increased without increasing the symbol transmission rate.