Let \(\varvec{\textsf {Substr}}_{\varvec{k}}\varvec{(X)}\) denote the set of length- \(\varvec{k}\) substrings of a given string \(\varvec{X}\) for a given integer \(\varvec{k}>\varvec{0}\) . We study the following basic string problem, called \(\varvec{z}\) -Shortest \(\varvec{\mathcal {S}}_{\varvec{k}}\) -Equivalent Strings: Given a set \(\varvec{\mathcal {S}}_{\varvec{k}}\) of \(\varvec{n}\) length- \(\varvec{k}\) strings and an integer \(\varvec{z}>\varvec{0}\) , list \(\varvec{z}\) shortest distinct strings \(\varvec{T}_{\varvec{1}}\varvec{,\ldots ,}\varvec{T}_{\varvec{z}}\) such that \(\varvec{\textsf {Substr}}_{\varvec{k}}\varvec{(}\varvec{T}_{\varvec{i}}\varvec{)}=\varvec{\mathcal {S}}_{\varvec{k}}\) , for all \(\varvec{i}\,{\in }\,\varvec{[1,z]}\) . The \(\varvec{z}\) -Shortest \(\varvec{\mathcal {S}}_{\varvec{k}}\) -Equivalent Strings problem arises naturally as an encoding problem in many real-world applications; e.g. in data privacy, data compression, and bioinformatics. The \(\varvec{1}\) -Shortest \(\varvec{\mathcal {S}}_{\varvec{k}}\) -Equivalent Strings, referred to as Shortest \(\varvec{\mathcal {S}}_{\varvec{k}}\) -Equivalent String, asks for a shortest string \(\varvec{X}\) such that \(\varvec{\textsf {Substr}}_{\varvec{k}}\varvec{(X)}=\varvec{\mathcal {S}}_{\varvec{k}}\) . Our main contributions are as follows. Given a directed graph \(\varvec{G}=\varvec{(V,E)}\) , the Directed Chinese Postman (DCP) problem asks for a shortest closed walk that visits every edge of \(\varvec{G}\) at least once. DCP can be solved using an algorithm for min-cost flow. We show, via a non-trivial reduction, that if Shortest \(\varvec{\mathcal {S}}_{\varvec{k}}\) -Equivalent String over a binary alphabet has a near-linear-time solution then so does DCP. Secondly, we show that the length of a shortest string output by Shortest \(\varvec{\mathcal {S}}_{\varvec{k}}\) -Equivalent String is in \(\varvec{\mathcal {O}}\varvec{(}\varvec{k}+\varvec{n}^{\varvec{2}}\varvec{)}\) . We generalize this bound by showing that the total length of \(\varvec{z}\) shortest strings is in \(\varvec{\mathcal {O}}\varvec{(}\varvec{zk}+\varvec{zn}^{\varvec{2}}+\varvec{z}^{\varvec{2}}\varvec{n}\varvec{)}\) . We derive these upper bounds by showing (asymptotically tight) bounds on the total length of \(\varvec{z}\) shortest Eulerian walks in general directed graphs. Furthermore, we present an algorithm for solving \(\varvec{z}\) -Shortest \(\varvec{\mathcal {S}}_{\varvec{k}}\) -Equivalent Strings in \(\varvec{\mathcal {O}}\varvec{(}\varvec{nk}+\varvec{n}^{\varvec{2}}\,\varvec{\log }^{\varvec{2}}\,\varvec{n}+\varvec{zn}^{\varvec{2}}\,\varvec{\log }\,\varvec{n}+|\varvec{\textsf {output}}|)\) time. If \(\varvec{z}=\varvec{1}\) , the time becomes \(\varvec{\mathcal {O}}\varvec{(}\varvec{nk}+\varvec{n}^{\varvec{2}}\,\varvec{\log }^{\varvec{2}}\,\varvec{n}\varvec{)}\) by the fact that the size of the input is \(\varvec{\Theta }\varvec{(nk)}\) and the size of the output is \(\varvec{\mathcal {O}}\varvec{(}\varvec{k}+\varvec{n}^{\varvec{2}}\varvec{)}\) . Finally, we also provide a direct technical application of our algorithms on strings in an existing data privacy framework. A preliminary version of this paper was announced at CPM 2022.