Use the distributive property.

Combine like terms

Multiply $ \dfrac{17}{4} $ by $ \dfrac{1}{x} $ to get $ \dfrac{ 17 }{ 4x } $.

Step 1: Multiply numerators and denominators.

Step 2: Simplify numerator and denominator.

$$ \begin{aligned} \frac{17}{4} \cdot \frac{1}{x} \xlongequal{\text{Step 1}} \frac{ 17 \cdot 1 }{ 4 \cdot x } \xlongequal{\text{Step 2}} \frac{ 17 }{ 4x } \end{aligned} $$

Subtract $1$ from $ \dfrac{17}{4x} $ to get $ \dfrac{ \color{purple}{ -4x+17 } }{ 4x }$.

Step 1: Write $ 1 $ as a fraction by putting $ \color{red}{ 1 } $ in the denominator.

Step 2: To subtract raitonal expressions, both fractions must have the same denominator.
We can create a common denominator by multiplying the second fraction by $\color{blue}{4x}$.

$$ \begin{aligned} \frac{17}{4x} -1 & \xlongequal{\text{Step 1}} \frac{17}{4x} - \frac{1}{\color{red}{1}} = \frac{ 17 }{ 4x } - \frac{ 1 \cdot \color{blue}{ 4x }}{ 1 \cdot \color{blue}{ 4x }} = \\[1ex] & \xlongequal{\text{Step 2}} \frac{ \color{purple}{ 17 } }{ 4x } - \frac{ \color{purple}{ 4x } }{ 4x }=\frac{ \color{purple}{ -4x+17 } }{ 4x } \end{aligned} $$