strumming

I'm looking at some simple songs in chord format (Chordpro, etc), but does anyone have tips on how to strum the chords? Up, down, what rhythm?

I can download the songs online, but is it going to be obvious what rhythm & strumming to use?

I varies from song to song.
Unless specified in the tab, you'll just have to go by ear.

The downstrokes will be the more dominant ones.

all struming is in a up down pattern or (down up) whatever. The trick is to know the speed of the strum or when and if it changes and more importently which stroke being up or down to miss. ie up (down miss) up, down gives one sound followed by a pause then two sounds or chords followed one after another. Sorry that may not help ...
If your starting out then just do slow down strokes to a song beat, as you go do down and up, and see what goes...you will understand eventually. Just remember, playing chords is essentially knowing when not to hit the stroke on the down or up.

Heres a rule of thumb. Unless its otherwise stated, use a dowstroke on the beat and an upstroke on the offbeat.

I think I may have figured it out somewhat... I was trying out "Rocky Raccoon" which seems to be a pretty easy one to play (apart from a C6 chord I had to learn :)

It's much easier when you listen to the song, but the one I was trying to play before didn't have a good guitar part, so it was hard to tell.

use guitar pro if you can, it helps sooooo much when learning anything!

I really do like chord pro :)

I don't have the actual program but there's a good website I go to - I have the link at home, though, so I can't show you!