Change The Icon for All Files of the Same Type

I want to change the icon that the Finder users for all files of a particular type, say all my Excel files, so that they use the same icon - in this case, the icon for Excel itself. I cannot figure out how to do this! Can anyone provide me help in how to do this? Thanks!

You would need a program like Candybar to do that. You can try it for free. I would suggest buying it you can change icons for everything. Trash, Finder, etc.
you can find it here-------->http://www.panic.com/candybar/

Hmmm... OK, well I had a look at their web site. Are you then restricted to the icons they provide, or can you use any that you wish, including icons that are already on the system? Per my example, I really like the stylized green Excel icon and want all my spreadsheet to show up in finder with it. Can I do this somehow with Candybar?

I still have a hard time believing that Mac OS X will not allow you to change the icon it associates with any given file type. Heck, even Windows 3.1, a long, long time ago would let you do that. Surely Mac OS X does not lack this flexibility too???

You can change the icon manually, but it would have to be one icon at a time i think.