file extension problem

I recently received information from a lovely elderly gentleman in Germany; he went to an archive and came out with images of documents etc. He sent me these in a file he made in Family Tree Maker 5, and I was so excited -- until I tried to open it in Family Tree Maker 2012, the one I have. The .fbc file he sent me can't be opened in FTM 2012! I emailed him and asked whether he could save it in a different format, but I get the sense he's not well and I don't want to bother him further.

Is there any way I can get this file converted to an .ftm file that I can read? I can't afford to buy the FTM 5 program.

If this is an inappropriate question, please let me know, but I'm desperate to see what's in that file!