How do I open a "Acrobat X" document without the newest version?

When I open a certain PDF file I get the following error:

For the best experience, open this PDF portfolio in 
Acrobat  X or Adobe Reader  X, or later.

Get Adobe Reader Now!

I have Foxit Reader 5.1.4 and Adobe Reader 8.3.1. Neither will open it at all, except for this error message. Brief google-ing showed that a similar thing can happen with version 9.

For the best experience, open this PDF portfolio in
Acrobat 9 or Adobe Reader 9, or later.

Apparently Adobe, in their wisdom, has invented a new format that in not backwards compatible, and someone saved this document in the non-backwards compatible mode. Spiffy-do for them. Great for Adobe in theory, but

1. I do not want to get the new version of Adobe.
2. I did try to download it, against my better judgement. The installer downloaded. I ran it. It failed to finish, and deleted itself as well so I couldn't just try again.

So now I am thoroughly against getting the new version, or using Adobe Acrobat at all. Good move Adobe.

Is there another way to convert this to something I can read? My first thought is to find someone who has Adobe Acrobat X, have them open it, and save it in a backwards compatible format. But I'd rather not involve others, I want something I can do myself for the next time this happens.

I tried uploading to Google Docs, to see if they would magically parse the document so I could read it in the web format. That had the same results, the dumb message/advertisement.

Since this is not something that I have to have, if I can't read it without version X, I will just go without it.

I'm 99% sure PDF's like these are assembled as portfolios of multiple standalone pdfs in Adobe Acrobat.

• SumatraPDF (windows only), bookmarks sidebar (F12) lists embedded documents.
• evince (gnome), sidebar (F9) and choose attachments from the heading dropdown menu.
• okular (kde), untested but others say it works.
• pdftk extract all pdf embedded attachments: pdftk <filename> unpack_files output .
• pdf-tools extract all pdf embedded attachments: pdfdetach -saveall <filename>

I'd say ditch Adobe Acrobat completely--it is just a waste of time, and they are trying to generate more sales with this new "feature" (read "bug").

You can bypass this with a conversion to ps and back:

pdf2ps file.pdf
ps2pdf file.ps

Or, avoiding creation of an intermediary file by piping pdf2ps output to ps2pdf input:

pdf2ps file.pdf - | ps2pdf - converted_file.pdf