How To:successive appearance of figure elements in powerpoint presentation?

In PowerPoint 2007, go to the Animations tab at the top of PowrePoint. Click on the word Custom Animations near the left to launch the animation palette.

In PowerPoint XP/2003, select something on your slide, right click on it and select Custom Animation to open up the animation palette.

From here, it's the same for both versions of PowerPoint...

Select the objects you want to animate in and go to the top of the Animation Palette to Add Effect --> Entrance. Pick from the list or choose More Effects to see all your options.

Once you have added an effect, you will see each element listed in the palette. Select them all and for Start at the top, set it to On Click. You can re-arrange the order they come in by dragging the items in the palette.

That's the basics - once you get into the animation palette and start playing, I think it will make sense. If you run into problems, feel free to ask me for more info.