Why do they publish such awful hints as this? I guess it's fine if all you're going to do is print the PDF and never use it again, but for anything else (like sending it to someone else), this is bad news all around.

There are many better ways to do this while maintaining the original PDF (texts, vectors, etc.), as some commenters have pointed out. (Acrobat Pro is, of course, another option, though significantly more expensive. :))

well, the original hint may be awful, but as you say it's lead to some helpful comments so all around I'm glad the hint was published.

Absolutely, but this kind of thing belongs in a forum. Wrong tool for the job, wouldn't you say?

It's a community-driven site. Hints Dot Macworld Dot Com needs reworking, giving more prominence to the forums, where submissions such as the above can be hammered out, and then a hint produced by the publishers to encapsulate the discussion.