diff --git a/docs/user_guide/preprocessing.md b/docs/user_guide/preprocessing.md
index 5f3d52c..272924c 100644
--- a/docs/user_guide/preprocessing.md
+++ b/docs/user_guide/preprocessing.md
@@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ preprocessor = Preprocessor(
 | --------------------- | ------------------------------ | ----- |
 | `int`                 | `ContinuousOrdinalTransformer` | Integer/ordinal encoding (default) |
 | `one-hot`             | `OneHotEncoder`                | One-hot encoding |
-| `onehot_from_ordinal` | `OneHotFromOrdinalTransformer` | One-hot from pre-encoded ordinals |
+| `onehot_from_ordinal` | `ContinuousOrdinalTransformer` -> `OneHotFromOrdinalTransformer` | Integer codes, then one-hot (reserves column `0` for unseen categories) |
 | `pretrained`          | `LanguageEmbeddingTransformer` | Pretrained language embeddings |
 | `custombin`           | `CustomBinTransformer`         | Binning of categorical codes |
 | `none`                | `NoTransformer`                | Pass-through |
diff --git a/pretab/pipeline/categorical.py b/pretab/pipeline/categorical.py
index a860be2..2f63020 100644
--- a/pretab/pipeline/categorical.py
+++ b/pretab/pipeline/categorical.py
@@ -49,6 +49,11 @@ def get_categorical_transformer_steps(
             bin_kwargs.setdefault("output_dim", output_dim)
         steps.append(("custombin", CustomBinTransformer(**bin_kwargs)))
     elif method == "onehot_from_ordinal":
+        # ``OneHotFromOrdinalTransformer`` expects integer codes; the Preprocessor
+        # hands it raw column values, which are usually strings. Encode first so
+        # the method matches its documented "integer codes then one-hot"
+        # behaviour instead of dying in ``np.max(...).astype(int)``.
+        steps.append(("continuous_ordinal", ContinuousOrdinalTransformer()))
         steps.append(("onehot_from_ordinal", OneHotFromOrdinalTransformer()))
     else:
         raise invalid_param_error(
diff --git a/pretab/preprocessor.py b/pretab/preprocessor.py
index fcf228a..22c9b36 100644
--- a/pretab/preprocessor.py
+++ b/pretab/preprocessor.py
@@ -52,9 +52,11 @@ class Preprocessor(TransformerMixin, BaseEstimator):
     categorical_method : str, default="int"
         Preprocessing strategy applied to every categorical column unless overridden per feature.
         Choices: ``"int"`` (contiguous integer codes), ``"one-hot"`` (dummy columns),
-        ``"onehot_from_ordinal"`` (integer codes then one-hot), ``"pretrained"`` (sentence-transformer
-        language embeddings), and ``"custombin"`` (discretized bin codes). Pass ``None`` (resolved to
-        ``"none"``) to leave categorical columns unchanged.
+        ``"onehot_from_ordinal"`` (contiguous integer codes, then one-hot; reserves the first
+        column for categories unseen at fit time, so a column with ``k`` categories expands to
+        ``k + 1`` columns), ``"pretrained"`` (sentence-transformer language embeddings), and
+        ``"custombin"`` (discretized bin codes). Pass ``None`` (resolved to ``"none"``) to leave
+        categorical columns unchanged.
     feature_preprocessing : dict, optional
         Mapping of individual column names to a method, overriding the global ``numerical_method`` /
         ``categorical_method`` for those columns only, e.g.
diff --git a/tests/test_categorical_pipeline.py b/tests/test_categorical_pipeline.py
index 1f8ad2e..66b2c00 100644
--- a/tests/test_categorical_pipeline.py
+++ b/tests/test_categorical_pipeline.py
@@ -1,7 +1,11 @@
+from typing import cast
+
 import numpy as np
+import pandas as pd
 import pytest
 from sklearn.pipeline import Pipeline
 
+from pretab import Preprocessor
 from pretab.pipeline import get_categorical_transformer_steps
 
 
@@ -28,3 +32,43 @@ def test_one_hot_handle_unknown_override():
     with pytest.raises(ValueError):
         pipe.transform(np.array([["C"]]))
 
+
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+# ``onehot_from_ordinal`` must accept raw (string) categoricals.
+#
+# The pipeline appended only ``OneHotFromOrdinalTransformer``, which requires
+# already-ordinal input, so ``np.max(X, axis=0).astype(int)`` died with a bare
+# ``ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'c'``.
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+def test_onehot_from_ordinal_encodes_string_categories():
+    frame = pd.DataFrame({"c": ["a", "b", "c"] * 30})
+    pre = Preprocessor(categorical_method="onehot_from_ordinal", numerical_method="none")
+
+    out = cast("np.ndarray", pre.fit_transform(frame, return_array=True))
+
+    # 3 categories plus the reserved column 0 for unseen values.
+    assert out.shape == (90, 4)
+    np.testing.assert_array_equal(out[:3], np.eye(4)[[1, 2, 3]])
+
+
+def test_onehot_from_ordinal_pipeline_encodes_before_one_hot():
+    steps = [name for name, _ in get_categorical_transformer_steps("onehot_from_ordinal")]
+    assert steps.index("continuous_ordinal") < steps.index("onehot_from_ordinal")
+
+
+def test_onehot_from_ordinal_sends_unseen_categories_to_the_reserved_column():
+    frame = pd.DataFrame({"c": ["a", "b", "c"] * 30})
+    pre = Preprocessor(categorical_method="onehot_from_ordinal", numerical_method="none").fit(frame)
+
+    out = cast("np.ndarray", pre.transform(pd.DataFrame({"c": ["a", "ZZZ", "c"]}), return_array=True))
+
+    np.testing.assert_array_equal(out[1], [1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0])
+
+
+def test_onehot_from_ordinal_feature_names_match_width():
+    frame = pd.DataFrame({"c": ["a", "b", "c"] * 30})
+    pre = Preprocessor(categorical_method="onehot_from_ordinal", numerical_method="none").fit(frame)
+
+    transformed = cast("np.ndarray", pre.transform(frame, return_array=True))
+    assert len(pre.get_feature_names_out()) == transformed.shape[1]