In this second paper in a series of three, we study the properties of the various emission features and underlying continuum in the optical spectra of type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by using the unobscured hard X-ray emission as a diagnostic. We introduce the use of the "correlation spectrum technique" (CST) for the first time. We use this to show the strength of the correlation between the hard X-ray luminosity and each wavelength of the optical spectrum. This shows that for broad-line Seyfert 1 galaxies all the strong emission lines (the broad component of H{alpha} and H{beta}, [NeIII] {lambda}{lambda}3869/3967, [OI] {lambda}{lambda}6300/6364, [OII] {lambda}{lambda}3726/3729 and [OIII] {lambda}{lambda}4959/5007) and the optical underlying continuum all strongly correlate with the hard X-ray emission. In contrast, the narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies show a stronger correlation in the optical continuum but a weaker correlation in the lines.